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Contributions  to  Psychology 


PSYCHOPATHIC  BEHAVIOR 

AND  OTHERS 


BOSTON 
RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


JUfctri  Jaufcott  flail 


Copyright  1918,  1919,  by  Richard  G.  Badger. 
All  Rights  Reserved. 


In  view  of  the  great  importance  of  the  contributions  of  eminent  specialists 
in  psychology  which  have  been  published  in  THE  JOURNAL  OF  ABNORMAL 
PSYCHOLOGY,  and  the  increasing  demand  for  the  same,  the  publisher  has  been 
encouraged  to  re-issue  such  numbers  as  are  in  print,  in  order  that  this  valuable 
material  may  be  more  accessible  to  the  general  reader,  under  the  title  of 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  PSYCHOLOGY. 

The  articles  in  this  volume  originally  appeared  in  THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY,  Volume  XIII.,  April,  1918,  to  March,  1919. 


PAGE 

Analysis  and  Re-Education  with  Case  Studies,  Psychological  (Ham- 
ilton)    323 

Behaviour,  The  Psychology  of  (Severn)    235 

Biological  Viewpoint  in  Psychopathology  and  Psychiatry,  The  in- 
creasing Importance  of  the  (Solomon)   168 

Central  Nervous  System,  The  Chemical  Dynamics  of  the  (Robert- 
son)         54 

Character  Traits,  Anal  Erotic  (Jones)    261 

Conscious  Behaviour  and  The  Abnormal"  (Kantor)  158 

Criminology   ( Parmelee)    234 

Delusions,  A  Clinical  Study  of  the  Origin,  Development  and  Disap- 
pearance of  a  System  of  (Emerson)   23 

Deutschtum,  The  Creed  of  (Prince)    236 

Dream  in  "Jean  Christophe,"  The  (Weinberg)    12 

Dream  Personality,  Clinical  Study  of  a  (Sidis)   137 

Dynamics,  The  Chemical — of  the  Central  Nervous  System  (Robert- 
son)         54 

Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions,  Judgment  of  (Langfeld)   117 

Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases  (Southard)  .  . .    199 

Epileptoid  Cases  in  Soldiers,  A  Study  of  Two  (Read)   33 

Hamlet  and  Orestes,  Concerning  (MacCurdy)  250 

Human  Nature  and  Its  Remaking  (Hocking) 295 

Hypnagogic  Hallucinations  with  Cases  Illustrating  these  Sane  Mani- 
festations   (Yawger)     73 

Illusion  of  Levitation,  The  (Horton)  42,  119 

Jesus  the  Christ  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  (Hall)   190 

Lange-James  Theory,  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions  Bearing  on  the 

(Myerson)    239 

Levitation,  The  Illusion  of  (Horton)    42,  119 

Medical  Sciences,  A  Reference  Handbook  of  (Stedman)   300 

Mental  Deterioration,   Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

as  a  Measure  of  (Pressey  &  Cole)   285 

Mental  Hygiene.  Principles  of  (White)    58 

Mysticism  and  Its  Symbolism,  Problems  of  (Silberer)   349 

Narcolepsy   (Burr)  '. 185 

Nervous  System,  Diseases  of  the  (Jelliffe  &  White)  231 

Origin  and  Evolution  of  Life  on  the  Theory  of  Action  and  Interac- 
tion of  Energy  (Osborn)   194 

Personality  and  Conduct  (Parmelee)    233 

Point  Scale  Examinations  on  the  High  Grade  Feeble  Minded  and  the 

Insane,    (Curtis)    77 

Primitive  Races,  Sex  Worship  and  Symbolism  of  (Brown)   61 

Psychiatric  Social  Worker,  The  (Myerson)   225 

Psychical  Phenomena  and  the  War  (Carrington)   300 


INDEX  TO  SUBJECTS  PAGE 

Psycho-Analysts,  On  the  Assumptions  of  (Stephen)   17 

Psychoanalytic  Method,  The  (Pfister)    192 

Psychology,  The  Fundamentals  of  (Pillsbury)   60 

Psychological  Scales,  Are  the  Present — Reliable  for  the  Examination 

of  Adults?  (Pressey  &  Cole)  314. 

Psychopathic  Behaviour,  The  Practical  Measurement  of   (Gosline)  65 

Revolutions,  A  Remark  on  the  Occurrence  of  (Sidis)   217 

Sex  Ethics,  Rational  (Robie)   61 

Sex,  An  Introduction  to  the  Physiology  and  Psychology  of  (Herbert)  61 

Sex  Worship  and  Symbolism  of  Primitive  Races  (Brown)    61 

Social  Worker,  The  Psychiatric  (Myerson)    225 

Stuttering,  What  is  the  Problem  of  (Blanton)   303 

Subconscious,  Dr.  Prince  and  the  Question  of  the  (Chase)   29 

Synesthesia,  A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  (Alford)   1 

Unmarried  Mother,  The  (Kammerer)   135 

Vocational  Psychology,  Its  Problems  and  Methods  (Rollings worth)  133 

War,  The  Psychology  of  (MacCurdy)   128 


VOL.  XIII  .APRIL,  1918  NUMBER  1 


ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


A  REPORT  ON  TWO  CASES  OF  SYNESTHESIA 

L.  B.  ALFORD,   M.  D. 

PATHOLOGIST,  THE  BOSTON  STATK  HOSPITAL 

THE  curious  variation  of  normal  mental  processes,  snesy- 
thesia,  has  scarcely  received  the  attention  it  deserves, 
in  view  of  its  frequency  and  its  possible  importance  in 
throwing  light  on  mental  activity  in  general.  One  finds 
many  articles  dealing  with  it,  but  a  majority,  are  merely  super- 
ficial reports  of  individual  cases.  I  have  found  only  one  contri- 
bution reporting  the  results  of  a  detailed  study  of  cases  made  in 
a  psychological  laboratory.  (1) 

The  studies  of  the  cases  here  reported  were  not  extensive 
and  are  considered  worthy  of  publication  only  because  they  seem 
to  throw  some  light  on  one  or  two  doubtful  points. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  synesthesia  in  detail  in  this 
article  because  a  very  good  conception  of  it  can  be  obtained 
from  a  recent  article  in  this  Journal  (2) ;  it  may  be  well,  however, 
to  enumerate  a  few  facts  that  are  more  or  less  basic  for  the 
investigations  made  on  these  two  cases. 

Synesthesia  is  evidently  of  common  occurrence,  although 
it  is  difficult  to  estimate  even  approximately  its  frequency, 
because  the  figures  of  different  observers  and  even  those  of  the 
same  observer  on  different  material  vary  within  such  wide  limits. 
Galton  (3)  gives  the  percentage  of  occurrence  as  3.3  of  the  general 
population,  while  Mercante  (4)  estimates  that  it  exists  in  80  per 
cent,  of  all  grade  school  children.  Calkins  (5)  found  it  present 
in  6.6  per  cent,  of  certain  classes  of  Wellesley  College  in  1891, 
and  in  15.7  in  1892.  Some  reason  for  the  difference  in  these 

Copyright  1918,  by  Richard  G.  Badger.     All  Rights  Reserved. 

1 


A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  Synesthcxia 


figures  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  condition  has  been 
described  under  a  number  of  different  names, — color-audition, 
psychochromesthesia,  photisms,  etc.,  some  of  which  include 
many  more  manifestations  than  others,  and  again  in  the  fact 
that*  it  is  not  possible  definitely  to  separate  synesthesia  from 
visions,  and  the  so-called  "forms."  and  "personifications." 
Accepting  the  lowest  estimates  as  correct,  however,  it  remains 
that  synesthesia  is  a  common  phenomenon. 

A  clear  idea  of  synesthesia  is  probably  best  obtained  from  a 
hypothetical  example.  In  one  form  a  spoken  word  or  other  sound 
is*  followed  in  the  synesthete  not  only  by  the  usual  sound  percep- 
tion but  also  by  a  perception  of  color  which  may  not  differ  greatly 
from  the  color-percept  produced  by  a  colored  object,  and  which 
takes  place  coincident  with  or  even  before  the  sound-percept. 
If  in  a  synesthete  the  color-association  of  the  name  John  be  red, 
he  is  able  to  name  the  color  as  quickly  and  as  definitely  as  he 
can  repeat  the  word  itself.  It  is  to  him  as  natural  that  "John" 
should  have  a  certain  color  as  that  it  should  have  a  certain  sound. 

The  above  example  of  the  association  of  colors  with  sounds, 
the  so-called  color-audition,  is  only  one  type  of  synesthesia, 
although  apparently  the  most  common  one.  In  a  similar  manner 
colors  may  be  associated  with  vision,  taste,  smell,  touch,  pain, 
temperature,  and  even  with  thoughts.  Further,  the  second- 
ary or  associated  sensation  need  not  be  a  color;  it  may  be  a  sound, 
taste,  tactile  or  any  other  type  of  sensation,  and  indeed  may  be 
a  feeling  of  pleasantness  or  unpleasantness  not  ordinarily  con- 
sidered as  a  sensation.  Again,  secondary  sensations  may  be 
multiple  and  involve  more  than  one  sense.  In  fact  the  types 
and  extent  of  the  associations  are  almost  limitless.  For  example, 
when  the  individual  studied  by  Ulrich  heard  the  letter  "a,"  he 
perceived  in  addition  to  the  sound  the  color  green,  a  taste  insipid 
and  unpleasant,  a  coldness  and  a  surface  smooth  like  a  pane  of 
glass.  For  him  the  color  association  of  water  varied  with  the 
temperature,  being  at  50°  deep  red,  at  40°  clear  red,  at  35°  rose 
and  green  and  at  25°  clear  red.  Each  musical  instrument  had 
its  particular  color  upon  which  were  engrafted  the  colors  of  the 
different  notes  or  airs.  (6)  In  some  persons  only  a  few  words  or 
sounds  may  have  associations,  while  in  others  like  Dr.  D.  Fraser 
Harris,  all  words  and  even  ideas  are  colored.  (2) 

The  so-called  "forms"  and  "personifications"  and  visions 
often  are  found  in  the  subject  with  synesthesia  and  in  a  sense 


L.  B.  Alford  3 

are  similar  to  it.  The  most  common  type  of  "forms"  is  "num- 
ber forms  "  which  Dr.  Peabody  of  Harvard  has  recently  estimated 
to  occur  in  25%  of  children.  (7)  When  a  subject  with  a  number 
form  attempts  any  sort  of  mathematical  calculation^  he  always 
thinks  of  numbers  as  arranged  in  a  certain  constant  form  and 
conducts  his  calculations  by  reading  off,  so  to  speak,  the  results 
from  this  form.  Sir  Francis  Galton  found  that  several  mathe- 
matical prodigies  were  enabled  to  perform  their  remarkable 
calculations  by  means  of  these  forms.  (3) 

In  subjects  having  "personifications"  numbers,  letters,  the 
months,  etc.,  may  arouse  feelings  that  ordinarily  are  felt  in  refer- 
ence to  persons.  For  example  one  says:  "T's  are  generally  cruel 
ungenerous  creatures;  U  is  a  soulless  thing.  I  dislike  11,  13  and 
17.  My  feeling  for  11  is  almost  one  of  pity."  (5)  Another 
says:  "All  the  little  a's  have  their  eyes  turned  to  the  right."  (3) 

The  types  of  visions  are  almost  as  numerous  as  the  subjects 
having  visions.  Number  forms  may  be  regarded  as  one  variety 
of  visions.  Another  is  that  represented  by  the  woman  described 
by  Raines,  who  in  idle  moments  amused  herself  by  recalling  the 
vision  of  a  castle  of  ancient  architecture  situated  in  beautiful 
grounds,  the  details  of  which  were  invariable  and  perfectly 
distinct  (8).  Still  another  type  is  the  epileptic  aura.  (9)  (10). 
Visions  probably  reach  their  fullest  development  in  the  psychic 
medium  or  at  least  that  type  of  medium  who  makes  her  prophecies 
by  interpreting  the  constant  stream  of  visions  and  hallucinations 
of  all  the  senses  that  pass  through  her  mind  under  the  proper 
conditions.  (11) 

Some  characteristics  of  synesthesia  stated  by  Sir  Francis 
Galton  in  his  interesting  and  illuminating  book  published  in 
1883,  and  since  found  to  be  generally  applicable  are  as  follows: 

(1)  That  synesthesiae  are  remarkably  persistent; 

(2)  Synesthetes  are  minute  in  their  descriptions  of  the 
colors,  thus  showing  that  the  colors  are  distinct; 

(3)  Two  people  hardly  ever  agree  as  to  the  associated 
color; 

(4)  The  tendency  to  synesthesia  is  very  hereditary. 
Almost  all  writers  agree  that  synesthesia  generally   first 

becomes  manifest  in  early  childhood  and  that  often  it  is  well 
developed  before  the  subject  has  learned  to  read  and  write. 
Without  doubt  it  gradually  disappears  as  the  subject  approaches 
adulthood  unless  preserved  by  training;  but  a  little  attention 


A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  Synesthesia 


often  will  result  in  its  reappearance  and  practice  may  serve  to 
increase  its  scope. 

The  secondary  sensations  are  remarkably  constant.  In  the 
case  of  Dr«  Harris  himself  they  have  remained  practically  unal- 
tered since  childhood.  (12)  Professor  Holden  found  very  few 
changes  in  those  of  his  daughter  when  he  examined  her  at  the 
ages  of  7,  8,  10j^,  13,  14J/2,  and  17j^  years  respectively.  (131) 
Apparently  in  rare  instances  associations  may  change  spontan- 
eously, but  they  cannot  be  altered  by  voluntary  effort. 

There  is  seldom  any  great  degrees  of  agreement  as  to  associ- 
ated sensations  among  synesthetes,  even  when  they  are  related. 
It  is  said  that  the  oft-mentioned  Nussbaumer  brothers  agreed 
more  often  than  they  differed  and  Harris  and  his  brother  had 
similar  associations  in  50%  of  the  words.  (12)  Usually  the  per- 
centage of  agreement  is  much  smaller  than  in  these  examples. 
It  is  not  a  practice  conducive  to  accuracy,  therefore,  to  resort 
to  associated  sensations  in  describing  primary  sensations  as  Bor- 
ing did  in  his  paper  on  the  physiology  of  tactile,  pain  and  tem- 
perature sensibility.  (14) 

When  colors  are  the  secondary  sensations  they  are  usually 
definite  and  distinct  as  well  as  delicate.  Several  adjectives  and 
various  comparisons  may  be  used  in  describing  them.  Un- 
doubtedly some  associations  have  been  wrongly  thought  to  have 
changed  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  attempting  to  describe  color- 
mixtures  different  terms  have  been  used  at  the  later  trials  for 
the  same  tint.  Given  water  colors  or  paints  the  subjects  are 
able  to  match  their  associations. 

Not  infrequently  synesthesia  is  found  in  several  members 
of  a  family.  The  cases  studied  by  Smith  consisted  of  a  man 
and  his  five  children  (15).  Laignel-Lavastine  was  able  to  estab- 
lish its  presence  in  10  of  11  individuals  representing  three  genera- 
tions of  a  family  (16).  Saurez  de  Mendoza  makes  the  point 
that  only  the  tendency  to  synesthesia  is  inherited  and  whether 
secondary  sensations  appear  or  not  depends  on  suggestion  to  a 
considerable  extent.  (17) 

Beaumis  and  Binet  investigated  the  reaction  time  of  associ- 
ated sensations  and  found  it  about  the  same  as  that  of  the  prim- 
ary. (18) 

The  utility  of  synesthesia  is  established  by  the  evidence  of 
many  investigators.  Harris  states  that  it  is  never  an  impedi- 
ment (19)  but  Thorp  was  forced  to  give  up  his  music  on  account 
of  the  disturbing  effects  of  the  secondary  sensations.  (20)  One 


L.  B.  Alford  5 

synesthete  asks:— "How  could  anyone  tell  whether  a  name  is 
pretty  or  not  except  by  its  color?"  Another  states  that  words 
incorrectly  spelled  have  the  wrong  color.  A  writer  was  aided 
in  composing  rhymes  by  his  color  associations.  Mr.  Spencer 
found  his  of  service  in  learning  a  foreign  language.  (21)  Scriabin, 
the  Russian  composer  of  operas,  judges  his  harmonies  by  the 
colors  associated  therewith.  He  has  the  ambition  to  see  some 
of  his  musical  creations  given  with  color  and  odor  accompani- 
ments so  selected  that  all  three  sensations  .will  blend  in  one  great 
harmony.  (22)  Blanchard  saw  an  attempt,  and  to  judge  from 
the  amount  of  applause,  a  successful  one,  to  produce  a  color- 
sound  harmony  in  a  London  music  hall.  (23)  Grafe  has  sug- 
gested that  synesthesia  may  be  utilized  to  make  the  blind  see 
and  the  deaf  hear.  (24) 

It  is  definitely  established  that  synesthesia  is  not  a  mental 
abnormality.  That  it  has  been  found  associated  with  the 
psychoneuroses  and  epilepsy  does  not  controvert  this  statement. 
A  large  majority  of  the  subjects  are  normal,  healthy-minded 
persons.  Indeed  it  has  been  frequently  stated  that  their  intelli- 
gence is  above  the  average.  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan  (21), 
Henry  Head  (2),  and  many  other  noted  men  have  synesthesia. 
Harris  believes  synesthesia  a  manifestation  of  genius.  (19) 

It  is  stated  that  synesthetes  are  prone  to  have  certain  mental 
peculiarities.  They  are  apt  to  be  imaginative,  introspective, 
shy  and  sensitive.  As  a  result  of  the.  sensitiveness  they  may 
conceal  their  faculty  from  a  false  notion  that  it  is  abnormal. 
Again  they  frequently  have  talents  along  musical  and  artistic 
lines.  In  a  surprisingly  large  number  of  the  reports  of  cases- 
one  finds  it  stated  that  the  subject  is  very  intelligent. 

The  present  study  was  undertaken  chiefly  to  establish  the 
dgree  of  correspondence  of  associated  sensations  in  the  two 
subjects.  As  they  were  twins  of  the  same  sex  and  therefore 
presumably  much  alike  mentally  both  by  nature  and  training, 
it  seemed  that  the  extent  of  such  correspondence  would  throw 
some  light  on  the  factors  that  determine  the  form  of  secondary 
sensations  indicating  whether  these  sensations  are  accidental, 
i.  e.,  dependent  on  conditions  that  it  is  impossible  to  determine, 
a  result  of  some  peculiarity  of  mental  make-up,  or  are  determined 
by  suggestion.  The  cases  at  first  promised  to  be  unique  because 
before  the  study  was  begun  the  subjects  themselves  believed 
that  their  associations  were  always  the  same. 

The   circumstances   under    which   it   was   discovered   that 


6  . 1  Report  on  Tivo  Cases  of  Synesthesia 

synesthesia  was  present  in  these  subjects  are  interesting  and 
perhaps  important.  After  an  intimate  acquaintance  of  several 
years  during  which  synesthesia  wras  not  mentioned,  the  remark 
was  dropped  casually  by  one  of  them  in  my  presence  that  when 
they  were  children  the  names  of  persons  were  colored.  After  a 
few  further  remarks  the  topic  of  conversation  was  changed  and 
the  incident  \vas  forgotten  for  several  weeks.  Then  I  came  across 
the  article  by  Blanchard  (23)  and  recognized  that  the  phe- 
nomenon he  described  was  the  same  as  that  present  in  them. 
Before  the  strfdy  was  undertaken  all  available  literature  con- 
sisting of  about  sixty  articles,  was  gone  over. 

The  subjects  are  young  men  27  years  of  age  and  are  very 
intelligent.  In  school  they  were  brilliant  students.  They  com- 
pleted the  high  school  and  college  courses  each  in  one  year  less 
than  the  usual  time,  and  in  both  stood  near  the  heads  of  their 
classes.  On  several  occasions  they  accomplished  mental  feats 
quite  beyond  the  usual  student.  Wishing  once  to  enter  an 
advanced  class  in  German,  they  covered  the  prescribed  work 
for  two  years  in  about  12  lessons  taken  during  a  period  of  six 
weeks  so  well  that  at  the  end  of  the  following  year  they  wr^e 
among  the  very  best  of  the  third  year  class.  Again  they  were 
able  to  commit  to  memory  for  the  purpose  of  recitation  a  German 
poem  of  several  hundred  lines  merely  by  reading  it  over  a  few 
times.  They  surpassed  perhaps  in  literature  and  languages 
but  also  made  excellent  .grades  in  scientific  courses.  They  are 
very  fond  of  poetry  and  offhand  are  able  to  repeat  dozens  of 
verses  from  the  classical  authors,  which  apparently  have  been 
retained  from  their  school  days  without  especial  effort.  They 
are  fond  of  and  well  informed  in  architecture,  music  and  paint- 
ing. 

Temperamentally  they  are  emotional,  sympathetic,  sensi- 
tive, shy  and  modest,  almost  to  a  fault.  Their  lack  of  self- 
assertiveness  has  been  a  great  handicap  but  nevertheless  they 
have  been  quite  successful  in  their  work.  They  are  to  some 
extent  introspective  and  seclusive,  and  conceal  their  real  feelings 
and  thoughts  on  many  matters.  Still  they  are  very  agreeable 
companions  and  have  many  close  friends.  They  are  perhaps 
somewhat  morbid  in  their  liking  for  the  problems  fabricated  by 
writers  of  the  Shaw,  Ibsen  and  Browning  types.  Their  likes  and 
dislikes  are  similar. 

They  are  described  together  because  they  are  very  similar 
mentally  as  well  as  physically.  Their  differences  are  almost  too 


L.  B.  Alford  7 

subtle  to  analyze.  One  consistently  made  grades  a  few  points 
higher  than  the  other  and  also  takes 'toward  the  other  the  pro- 
tective attitude  of  an  elder  brother. 

In  the  study  both  at  first  acquiesced  and  co-operated  en- 
thusiastically.    Later,  however,  as   a  result  of   some  remark  of 
a  meddler  a  concealed  unwillingness  to  proceed  further  was 
detected  in  one  more  particularly,  and  the  work  as  originally 
planned  had  to  be  given  up.     With  one  of  the  subjects  an  ex- 
amination on  some  words  of  the  list  and  also  a  second  examina- 
tion after  an  interval  was  not  possible.     This  situation  accounts., 
for  the  different  sizes  of  the  groups  of  words  used  in  the  com- 
parisons. 

A  list  of  150  names,  chiefly  Christian  names,  was  made, 
and  then,  usually  with  nobody  else  present  besides  the  examiner 
and  subject,  although  on  a  few  occasions  both  subjects  were 
present,  the  names  were  read  off  and  the  responses  jotted  down. 
Sometimes  the  subject  would  glance  at  the  list  and  give  the 
answer  before  there  was  time  to  read  off  the  name.  Usually 
the  answers  were  given  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  but  with 
some  names  there  was  a  period  of  hesitation,  the  subject  explain- 
ing that  the  color  was  indistinct  or  difficult  to  describe,  or  that 
several  colors  were  perceived  and  it  was  hard  to  select  the  domi- 
nant one.  When  the  examination  lasted  longer  than  half  an 
hour,  the  subject  showed  signs  of  fatigue  and  stated  that  such 
an  array  of  colors  was  constantly  present  as  to  obscure  that  of 
the  name.  Although  both  subjects  be'lieved  that  their  synes- 
thesiae  had  disappeared  some  years  before,  these  immediately 
appeared  when  the  examination  was  begun.  The  second  trial 
was  made  3  months  after  the  first,  during  which  interval  synes- 
thesia  was  mentioned  only  a  few  times. 

Before  the  examination  the  subjects  believed  that  their 
associations  were  limited  to  Christian  names,  but  during  the 
tests  it  became  evident  that  the  names  of  a  few  cities,  some 
letters  and  figures  and  those  of  the  days  and  months  were  also 
colored.  Further  it  was  found  that  the  converse  association  was 
present,  thoughts  of  colors  serving  to  recall  names.  With  the 
months  there  was  an  interesting  experience:  When  first  asked 
concerning  them  one  subject  denied  associations.  A  few  days 
later,  however,  he  said:  "Oh  the  colors  of  the  months  suddenly 
came  to  me  the  other  day. "  As  it  was  with  figures,  letters,  and 
the  months,  so  it  is  the  impression  it  would  have  been  with  many 
other  words  had  the  tests  been  continued.  In  his  experience 


8 


A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  Synesthesia 


Whipple  found  that  associations  were  present  in  categories 
unsuspected  by  the  subject.  (1)  It  is  the  impression  further 
that  an  exhaustive  examination  by  a  psychologist  would  reveal 
in  synesthetes  peculiarities  in  mental  activity  comparable  to 
synesthesia,  in  many  fields. 

It  is  not  desirable  for  reasons  of  brevity  to  give  the  entire 
list  of  words  with  the  responses;  It  was  found  that  of  80  words 
with  which  satisfactory  responses  were  obtained  from  both  sub- 
jects, there  was  at  least  approximate  agreement,  with  54. 

In  the  subject  who  was  twice  tested,  with  only  two  words 
were  distinctly  different  colors  given  on  the  second  trial,  3  months 
later.  On  the  first  trial  there  were,  however,  7  words  for  which 
no  association  existed,  and  oil  the  second  19  different  words,  to 
leave  out  of  all  consideration  the  words  for  which  there  was  no 
association  on  either  test,  and  those  in  which  it  was  not  possible 
to  decide  whether  there  was  the  same  association  or  not.  The 
following  tests  give  some  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  deciding  this 
question,  and  also  of  the  nature  of  the  responses: 


Subject  I 

Test  name 
George 
John 
Henry 
Alma 
Nellie 
Adolph 
Adam 
Abraham 
Arnold 
Thomas 
Will 

Smith 

Raphael 
Max 

Ottilie 
Alonzo 


Association 

1st  trial 
red 

yellow-brown 
dark  blue 
sort  of  white 
pale  yellow 
muddy,  I  hate  it 
brown 
brown 

sort  of  yellow 
pale  blue 
no  association 

pale  blue, 

I  think 
starry 
dark 

(after  an  interval) 
no  association 
yellow 


Association 
3  mo.  later 
pink,  I  think 
yellow 
dark 

yellow,  I  think 
pink,  I  think 
red  or  brown-yellow 
dull  red 
red 

red-brown 
dark  blue 
kind  of  black 

(after  an  interval) 
no  association 

white 

no  association 

red  I  think 
brown  or  yellow- 
brown 


L.  B.  Alford 


Alexander  yellow  yellow-red 

Gertrude  pale  pink  several  colors 

Sarah  dull  blue 

D.  sort  of  light  no  association 

L.  white  pale  yellow 

These  names  are  the  two  on  which  there  was  a  decided 

difference  of  association  at  the  second  trial: 
Amy  very  yellow  red 

Jones  red  yellow 

This  list  of  names  and  responses  gives  the  associations  of 

both  subjects: 


Subject  I 


John 

Helen 

Ruth 

Grace 

Mary 

James     , 

Annie 

Homer 

Otto 

Alexander 

Kate 


Red 


1st  trial 
yellow  brown 
light  blue 
red 

yellow 
black 


Subject  II 


2nd  trial 
yellow 
pale  blue 
red 

yellow 
black 
brown 

pale  or  white 
blue  or  white 
real  blue 
yellow 

yellow  or  yel- 
low brown 

Reversing  the  order  of  the  test  and  giving  the  color  as  the 
stimulus  word,  gave  the  following  results  in  subject  I: 

1st  trial  3  mos.  later 

Alice,  Adele,  Ethel,  Alice,  Ethel,  Edwin,  Ruth, 

Esther,  Edwin,  Edward  Edgar,  Allen 

Agnes,  Verne,  Fern 
Charles,  Catherine 


pale 
blue 

real  blue 
yellow 
yellow 


red 

white 

rose,  I  think 

very  light  buff 

dark  red 

tan 

pale  blue 

white 

kind  of  blue 

red 

tan 


Orange 
Blue 


Violet 

Rose 

Pink 


Julius,  Julia 
Hildegarde,  Hugh,  Sue, 
Howard  and  Lucy 

No  association 
Many  names  given  to  test 
word  red 


Agnes,  Verne,  Fern 
Catherine,  Marguerite, 

Charles,  John 
No  association 
Sue,  Hildegarde,  Lucy, 

Hugh,  Howard  and  Le- 

land 
No  association 

Same 


10  A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  Synesthesia 

When  names  of  members  of  the  family  and  very  common 
names  were  used  in  the  comparison,  the  percentage  of  agreement 
was  no  higher  than  was  the  case  with  the  entire  list. 

It  is  stated  by  both  that  the  colors  are  'as  distinct  as  any 
could  be  from  a  colored  object.  They  are  not  projected  but 
are  "seen  in  the  mind."  Besides  some  replies  in  the  above  list 
other  evidence  of  personifications  was  obtained.  Subject  I  likes 
2,  3,  4,  6,  8,  M,  U,  Q,  X  and  Z;  dislikes  7,  R,  S,  T,  and  hates  J. 
Poetry  also  has  color  associations  in  this  subject.  The  colors 
of  poetry  seem  to  be  determined  more  by  the  sense  than  by  the 
individual  words  or  letters.  It  may  be  that  the  facility  with 
which  both  commit  verse  to  memory  is  somehow  a  result  of  these 
associations. 

No  reason  for  the  colors  of  many  names  can  be  worked  out. 
A  and  E  color  many  words  red  even  when  not  forming  the 
initial  letter.  So  also  U  and  H  color  some  names  blue  and  C 
some  white.  The  associated  color  of  Brown  is  brown.  It  is 
possible  to  venture  an  explanation  for  these  associations:  Sue, 
blue;  Flora,  red;  Fern  and  Verne,  green;  Monday,  blue.  In- 
deed both  subjects  state  that  they  believe  Monday  is  blue  be- 
cause of  the  expression,  "blue  Monday." 

No  definite  tests  were  made  on  other  members  of  the  family, 
but  superficial  inquiry  gave  no  evidence  of  synesthesia  in  them. 

Although  the  percentage  of  agreement  in  these  subjects 
(67%)  is  the  highest  that  has  yet  been  found  between  two  sub- 
jects, it  would  be  dangerous  to  affirm  that  either  suggestion  or 
similarity  of  mental  make-up  play  any  great  part  in  determining 
the  colors.  In  the  first  place  it  seems  likely  that  if  more  exact 
determinations  of  the  associations  wrere  made,  the  proportion  of 
agreement  would  be  much  lower.  Again,  considering  the  small 
number  of  colors  given  as  associations,  it  is  evident  that  the 
opportunity  for  difference  is  much  smaller  than  if  the  number  of 
colors  were  greater.  With  the  proportion  of  identical  factors  of 
suggestion  with  which  these  subjects,  being  all  their  lives  closely 
associated,  must  have  come  in  contact  and  with  the  resemblance 
as  to  their  mental  constitutions,  it  would  seem  that  responses 
should  agree  in  a  greater  proportion  of  instances,  if  mental  make- 
up and  suggestion  play  any  great  part  in  determining  associations. 

It  would  seem  that  an  intensive  study  of  cases  of  synesthesia,. 
for  which  the  psychologist  or  perhaps  the  Freudian  is  probably 
best  fitted,  should  throw  light  on  many  forms  of  mental  activity. 
It  is  doubtful  that  such  a  study  would  repay  the  psychiatrist  or 


L.  B.  Alford  II 

^ . 

neurologist  for  synesthesia  seems  to  be  a  manifestation  of  the 
normal  mind.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  spectra  and 
scotomata  of  migraine  may  be  in  part  synesthetic  phenomena. 

SUMMARY 

In  this  paper  first  an  attempt  is  made  to  give  a  brief  resume 
of  the  principal  facts  of  synesthesia.  Then  are  reported  the 
results  of  a  study  of  color-audition  in  twin  brothers,  whose  mental 
characteristics  are  very  similar.  It  is  found  that  there  was  ap~ 
parent  agreement  in  the  secondary  sensations  of  the  subjects, 
with  67  per  cent,  of  the  test  words,  but  it  seems  doubtful  that 
the  percentage  would  be  so  high  if  more  accurate  methods  were 
used.  It  is  concluded,  therefore,  that  mental  make-up  and 
suggestion  are  not  particularly  important  in  determining  the 
colors  in  associated  sensations.  Finally  it  is  suggested  that  a 
study  of  synesthetes  by  the  psychologist  or  psychoanalyst  might 
reveal  interesting  peculiarities  in  other  fields  of  mental  activity.. 

REFERENCES 

(1)  Whipple,  Two  cases  of  synesthesia,  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1899-1900,  XI,  377.. 

(2)  Harris,  Colored  thinking,  this  journal,  1908,  III,  97. 

(3)  Galton,  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty  and  its  Developement,  London,  1883. 

(4)  Mercante,  quoted  by  Pierce,  Synesthesia,  Psychological  Bulletin,  1912,  IX,  179. 

(5)  Calkins,  A  statistical  study  of  pseudo-chromesthesia  and  of  mental  forms,  American 

Journal  of  Psychology,  1892-93,  V,  439. 

(6)  Ulrich,  quoted  by  Laures,  Les  Synesthesies,  Paris,  1908. 

(7)  Peabodv,  Certain  further  experiments  in  synaesthesia,  American  Anthropologist,  1915, 

XVII,  143. 

(8)  Raines,  Report  of  a  case  of  psycho-chromesthesia,  this  journal,  1909-10,  IV,  249. 

(9)  Alford,  A  Consideration  of  the  aurae  of  epilepsy  and  migraine.     Southard  Memorial,  (un-- 

published). 

(10)  Southard,  On  the  mechanism  of  gliosis  in  acquired  epilepsy,  American  Journal  of  Insanity - 

1907-8,  LXIV,  607. 

(11)  Prince,  An  experimental  study  of  visions,  Brain,  1898,  XXI,  528. 

(12)  Harris,  On  psycho-chromesthesia  and  certain  synesthesiae,  Edinburgh  Medical  Journal,. 

1905,  n.  s.  XVIII,  529. 

(13)  Holden,  Colour  associations  with  numerals,  etc.,  Nature,  1891,  XLIV,  223. 

(14)  Boring,  Cutaneous  sensation  after  nerve-division,  Quarterly  Journal  of  Experimenetal ', 

Physiology,  1916,  X,  I. 

(15)  Smith,  Synesthesia,  John  Hopkins  Hospital  Bulletin,  1905,  XVI,  258. 

(16)  Laignel-Lavastine,  Audition  coloree  familiale,  Revue  neurologique,  1901,  IX,  1152. 

(17)  Saurez  de  Mendoza,  L' Audition  Coloree,  La  Salpetriere,  1899. 

(18)  Quoted  by  Krohn,  Pseudo-chromesthesia  or  the  association  of  colors  with  words,  letters. 

and  sounds,  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  1892-93,  V,  20. 

(19)  Harris,  Colored  thinking  and  allied  conditions,  Science  Progress  in  20th  Century,  1914-15,, 

IX,  135. 

(20)  Thorp,  Colour  audition  and  its  relation  to  the  voice,  Edinburgh  Medical  Journal,  1894- 

95,  XL,  21. 

(21)  Jordan,  The  colors  of  letters,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  1891,  XXXIX,  367. 

(22)  Myers,  Two  cases  of  synesthesia,  BritUh  Journal  of  Psychology,  1914-15,  VII,  112. 

(23)  Blanchard,  De  I'encephalopsie  chromatique,  Bulletin  de  1' Academic  de  Medecine,  1916, . 

LXXV,  615. 

(24)  Grafe,  Note  sur  un  nouveau  cas  d'audition  coloree,  Revue  de  Medecine,  1897,  XVII,  192_ 


THE   DREAM  IN   "JEAN-CHRISTOPHE" 

BY    ALBERT    K.    WEINBERG 

WHILE  to  Freud  is  the  honor  of  having  opened  up  the 
world  of  dreams  in  that  first  he  elucidated  their  prob- 
lems and  gave  full  appreciation  to  their  value,  it  would 
seem  that  there  has  always  existed  a  semi-conscious 
realization  of  the  dream's  significance.  Primitive  man,  we 
know,  attached  great  importance  to  the  dream,  believing  that  it 
proceeded  from  divine  powers  and  presaged  the  future ;  this  atti- 
tude is  in  a  sense  based  on  intuition  of  truth  since  the  dream 
comes  from  the  unconscious  and  does  concern  itself  with  the 
future  in  embodying  a  wish.  A  more  valuable  testimony  to  the 
correctness  of  Freud's  theories  is  that  which  has  unconsciously 
been  given  by  the  artist,  who  whenever  he  has  constructed  the 
dreams  of  his  characters,  has  shown  himself  in  full  agreement 
with  the  thesis  that  the  dream  is  a  meanirigfull  psychic  product. 
One  notable  example  of  this  agreement  between  artist  and  psycho- 
logist is  provided  in  William  Jensen's  *  -Gradiva. " 

It  has  been  my  chance  to  discover  another  instance  where 
in  the  utilization  of  dreams  by  a  writer,  it  appears  that  he  has 
unconsciously  given  approbation  to  the  principles  laid  down  by 
Freud.  Let  us  not  be  surprised  that  Romain  Rolland  has 
intuitively  understood  the  significance  of  the  dream.  I  once 
heard  "  Jean-Christophe  "  designated  "the  unconscious  text-book 
of  all  psychology. "  With  what  insight,  in  the  early  part  of  his 
epic  novel,  Romain  Rolland  depicts  the  conflicts  of  the  child 
soul,  illustrating  in  artistic  form  the  basic  psychologic  truths  that 
Freud  sponsored  in  the  world  of  science!  We  think  of  Jean- 
Christophe's  intense  attachment  to  his  mother,  of  the  child's 
outbursts  of  hatred  towards  his  father. 

In  "Youth,"  on  page  313,  Romain  Rolland  finds  occasion 
to  have  one  of  his  characters  relate  a  dream.  Those  wrho  have 
read  the  book  will  recall  the  love-episode  between  Christophe 
and  the  girl  Ada,  who  was  his  first  mistress.  Christophe  meets 
Ada  when  the  latter  is  on  an  excursion  to  the  country  with  a  party 
of  friends.  The  two  are  attracted  to  each  other  at  the  very  start 
and  the  bold  Ada  encourages  this  chance  acquaintance  of  the 

12 


Albert  K.  Weinberg  13 


country  road  to  join  her  party.  After  supper  at  the  inn,  the  two 
become  separated  from  the  rest,  fall  into  each  other's  arms  and 
engrossed  in  their  love-making,  forget  the  hour  of  departure. 
They  miss  the  last  boat  and  spend  the  night  together  at  the  inn. 
As  soon  as  Ada  awakens  in  the  morning,  she  insists  _on  telling 
Christophe  her  dream.  He  does  not  listen  attentively  and  inter- 
rupts her,  but  she  forces  him  to  be  silent  and  tells  it  as  if  it  were  a 
were  a  thing  of  the  utmost  importance: 

"She  was  at  dinner:  the  Grand  Duke  was  there:  Myrrha  was 
a  Newfoundland  dog  ...  No,  a  frizzy  sheep  who  waited  at 
table  .  .  .  Ada  had  discovered  a  method  of  rising  from  the 
earth,  of  walking,  dancing,  and  lying  down  in  the  air.  You  see  it 
was  quite  simple:  you  had  only  to  do  .  .  .  thus  .  .  .  thus 
.-  .  .  and  it  was  done  .  .  ." 

With  the  aid  of  only  the  material  the  author  has  given  us 
we  can  apply  to  this  dream  the  Freudian  technique.  It  shows 
not  only  the  element  of  wish-fulfillment  but  also  the  factors  of 
distortion,  condensation,  symbolism,  which  Freud  has  developed 
in  his  psychology. 

She  was  at  dinner.  This  clearly  has  reference  to  the  meal 
which  the  party  had  taken  the  evening  before  at  the  inn.  It  was 
at  the  supper  that  the  passion  of  Christophe  and  Ada  for  each 
other  was  really  awakened.  "She  felt  as  she  looked  into  Chris- 
tophe's  eyes  the  passion  that  she  had  kindled  in  him:  and  that 
same  passion  began  to  awake  in  her.  She  was  silent:  she  left 
her  vulgar  teasing:  they  looked  at  each  other  in  silence:  on  their 
lips  they  had  the  savor  of  their  kiss.  From  time  to  time  by  fits 
and  starts  they  joined  vociferously  in  the  jokes  of  the  others: 
then  they  relapsed  into  silence,  stealing  glances  at  each  other. 
At  last  they  did  not  even  look  at  each  other,  as  though  they  were 
afraid  of  betraying  themselves.  Absorbed  in  themselves  they 
brooded  over  their  desire.  'n 

The  Grand  Duke  was  there.  It  is  not  difficult  to  discover 
who  this  Grand  Duke  represents.  The  idea  seems  to  be  that 
there  was  present  a  distinguished  guest.  At  the  meal  the  even- 
ing before  the  guest  of  Ada  and  her  intimate  friends  was  Chris- 
tophe. They  were  all,  we  are  told,  extremely  impressed  with 
Christophe's  position  as  Hof  Musicus,  in  their  eyes  an  exalted 
office.  Christophe,  therefore,  must  be  the  "Grand  Duke,"  the 
distinguished  guest.  In  addition  let  us  recall  that  it  was  at  the 


'Jean-Christophe — Youth — p.  308. 


jLofctr* 


14  The  Dream  in  "Jean-Christophe" 

court  of  the  Grand  Duke  that  Christophe  was  Hof  Musicus.  It 
is  not  at  all  unnatural  that  Ada  should  associate  Christophe  with 
his  patron,  the  Grand  Duke. 

Myrrha  was  a  Newfoundland  dog.  Myrrha  is  Ada's  friend, 
who  had  been  in  the  excursion  party  with  her.  At  the  meal  in 
the  evening,  Myrrha  had  tried  to  coquet  with  Christophe,  whom 
Ada  had  marked  out  as  her  own.  Ada  noticed  the  coquetry 
on  the  part  of  her  friend  and  combatted  it  with  her  own  wiles. 
At  first  Ada  did  this  merely  to  despite  her  friend,  but  we  are 
told,  she  became  caught  in  her  own  game.  Her  own  love  for 
Christophe  came  into  being  and  this  awakened  love  would  not 
have  regarded  the  rivalry  of  Myrrha  so  lightly.  In  representing 
Myrrha  as  a  Newfoundland  dog,  a  dog  characterized  by  its  size 
and  strength,  Ada  is  putting  in  symbolic  form  her  recognition  of 
Myrrha  as  the  formidable  rival. 

No,  a  frizzy  sheep  who  waited  at  table.  In  this  indistinct  part 
of  the  dream  Myrrha  seems  to  change  from  a  Newfoundland  dog 
to  a  frizzy  sheep  who  waited  at  table.  The  wish-fulfillment  here 
is  transparent.  We  will  understand  the  significance  of  the  sheep 
if  we  think  of  the  phrase  "harmless  as  a  lamb."  Ada  would 
have  Myrrha  cease  to  be  the  formidable  rival  (Newfoundland 
dog)  and  become  harmless,  that  is,  unable  to  win  Christophe 
away  from  her.  This  is  indeed  what  actually  happened  at 
the  evening  meal.  We  are  told  that  Myrrha,  while  attractive  to 
Christophe,  could  not  exercise  over  him  a  fascination  equal  to 
Ada's  and  "seeing  the  bout  lost,  abandoned  the  effort,  turned 
in  upon  herself,  went  on  smiling,  and  patiently  waited  for  her 
day  to  come."  Ada  knows,  however,  that  her  rival  is  simply 
waiting  for  her  day  to  come.  She  fears  for  her  hold  on  Chris- 
tophe, and  her  dream  fulfills  her  wish  that  her  rival  may  lose  her 
dangerous  character,  may  become  a  harmless  sheep. 

The  "waiting  at  table"  is  another  representation  of  the  same 
wish.  Ada  would  reduce  Myrrha  to  a  subordinate  position, 
would  have  her  cease  to  be  a  rival.  "The  frizzy  sheep  who 
waits  at  table"  is  a  tautology,  but  the  reason  for  this  doubling 
is  of  course  the  intensity  of  the  wish.  The  "waiting  at  table" 
may  be  understood  also  in  a  slightly  different  sense.  It  is  an  as- 
persion on  Myrrha,  contemptuously  assigned  to  this  menial  role. 
Riklin,  in  "Wish-fulfillment  and  Symbolism  in  Fairy  Tales," 
relates  how  a  man  in  his  dream  represented  his  rival  in  love  as 
having  his  head  where  should  have  been  the  pedals  of  the  piano, 


Albert  K.  Weinberg  15 


so  that  he,  an  adept  at  the  piano,  might  rest  his  feet  on  the  poor 
man's  head!     Dreams  are  not  kind  to  rivals! 

Ada  had  discovered  a  method  of  rising  from  the  earth,  of  walk- 
ing, dancing,  and  lying  down  in  the  air.     You  see  it  was  quite 
simple:  you  only  had  to  do     .     .     .     thus     .     .     .     thus 
and  it  was  done. 

There  are  fulfilled  in  this  part  of  the  dream  two  wishes,  one 
manifest,  the  other  latent.  In  the  latent  wish  here  embraced,  we 
find  the  most  important  element  of  the  dream.  Every  child  of 
course  has  the  desire  to  fly,  and  this  infantile  desire  probably 
still  persists  in  the  adult.  But  behind  this  desire  to  know  the 
means  of  rising  from  the  earth  is  concealed,  as  Freud  points  out 
in  "The  Interpretation  of  Dreams,"  a  much  more  vital  wish: 
the  desire  of  the  child  for  sexual  knowledge,  experience.  We  will 
understand  the  appropriateness  of  Ada's  dreaming  such  a  dream 
that  night  when  we  recall  that  that  night  she  had  had  her  first 
sexual  experience!  The  wonderful  new  thing  she  has  learned  in 
her  dream  is  the  experience  of  sexuality.  The  rising  from  the 
earth,  walking  and  dancing  in  the  air,  is  a  sexual  symbol,  em- 
bracing the  idea  of  the  rhythm.  The  lying  down  is  probably 
also  over-determined  with  sexual  significance. 

We  might  say  therefore  that  this  part  of  the  dream  embodies 
a  coitus  wish,  the  desire  to  be  Christophe's  mistress.  Freud, 
however,  has  posited  that  all  the  elements  of  a  dream,  however 
much  they  are  a  condensation  of  different  experiences,  possess  a 
uniting  link.  The  nucleus  of  this  dream  is  obviously  the  supper 
of  the  evening  before.  The  relation  of  the  last  part  of  the  dream, 
containing  the  fulfillment  of  the  coitus  wish,  to  the  parts  preced- 
ing is  easily  seen.  Ada's  unconscious  wish  at  the  supper,  when 
Myrrha  tried  to  take  Christophe  from  her,  was  probably  this: 
May  Myrrha  not  be  Christophe's  mistress,  but  may  I  be  his 
mistress.  The  reference  in  the  dream  to  Myrrha's  being  a  sheep 
who  waited  at  table,  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  first  part  of  this  wish; 
the  last  part  of  the  dream  fulfills  the  second  part  of  the  wish, 
the  desire  to  be  Christophe's  mistress. 

We  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  latent  content  of  this  last 
element.  :'To  discover  a  method  of  rising  from  the  earth,  of 
walking,  dancing  and  lying  down  in  the  air"  might  also  translate 
itself:  "To  discover  a  method  for  obtaining  a  lover."  In  nar- 
rating the  dream  Ada  joyfully  adds:  "You  see  it  was  quite  simple. 
You  had  only  to  do  .  .  .  thus  .  .  .  thus  .  .  . 
and  it  was  done. "  Ada's  entire  conduct  after  her  meeting  with 


16  The  Dream  in  "Jean-Christophe" 

Christophe  was  that  of  a  woman  fishing  for  a  lover.  It  was  in 
reality  she  who  had  seduced  him.  Ada  has  been  successful  in 
her  efforts  and  the  dream  expresses  her  joy  at  this  success.  But 
she  also  wants  to  hold  Christophe  in  the  future ;  the  dream  would 
say  that  it  will  be  possible  for  her  to  do  this.  "You  had  only  to 
do  ...  thus  .  .  .  thus  .  .  .  and  it  was  done." 
Ada  had  discovered  a  love-charm! 

After  Ada  has  finished  narrating  the  dream  Christophe 
simply  laughs.  Though  Ada  laughs  too  she  is  somewhat  dis- 
pleased by  his  attitude.  Shrugging  her  shoulders,  she  says: 
"  Ah !  You  don't  understand ! " 

What  is  the  explanation  of  this  strange  conduct  on  Ada's 
part?  Must  we  not  assume  that  Ada  herself  half -consciously 
recognized  the  import  of  her  dream  and  in  thus  telling  it  was 
indulging  in  a  bit  of  coquetry?  That  which  she  wanted  to  tell 
Christophe  by  the  narration  of  the  symbolic  dream  was  this: 
"It  is  I  whom  you  must  love,  not  Myrrha. "  We  see  now  why 
she  regarded  the  telling  of  the  dream  with  such  seriousness,  and 
why  she  was  angry  when  Christophe  failed  to  comprehend  its 
significance.  >;•- 


ON  THE  ASSUMPTIONS  OF  PSYCHO-ANALYSTS 

ADRIAN    STEPHEN 

IT  is  the  object  of  this  paper  to  consider  some  of  the  infer- 
ences which,  «as  I  understand  them,  Professor  Freud  and 
others  of  his  school  draw  from  observations  made  in  the 
course  of  psycho-analysis.      I  do  not  wish  to  dispute  the 
therapeutic  value  of  psycho-analysis — of  that  I  cannot  speak — 
but  I  should  like  to  suggest  the  possibility  that  some  of  the 
theoretic  grounds  upon  which  the  practice  is  commonly  based 
may  not  be  justified,  and  that  there  is  another  explanation  of  the 
actual  therapeutic  successes  obtained. 

As  I  understand  it  the  theoretic  basis  of  Psycho-analysis  is, 
shortly,  somewhat  as  follows.  It  is  believed  that  many  abnormal 
psychic  states  may  ultimately  be  accounted  for  by  the  presence 
in  the  subject  of  what  I  am  going  to  call  here  a  "repression." 
A  repression  is  an  emotion,  thought,  wish,  anxiety  or  the  like, 
which  is  kept  out  of  consciousness  by  the  operation,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  of  some  shame,  pain,  or  aversion  with  which  it  is 
for  some  reason  associated.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the  result  of  a  con- 
flict between  an  emotion  which  might  in  other  circumstances 
express  itself  in  consciousness  and  counter-emotions  which  en- 
deavour to  "censor"  it. 

Repressions  frequently  occur  where  the  subject  has  suffered 
some  grave  misfortune  or  has  done  some  action  or  had  some 
strong  desire  the  thought  of  which  he  finds  extremely  distasteful 
and  which  he  has  therefore  formed  the  habit,  probably  uncon- 
scious, of  banishing  from  his  mind.  This  is  one  of  the  elements 
out  of  which  the  theory  of  the  psycho-analysts  is  built  up.  The 
other  main  element  is  the  Law  of  Association.  The  Law  of 
Association  is,  roughly  speaking,  this :  Every  thought  and  indeed 
every  psychic  state  whatever,  that  is  not  immediately  induced 
by  some  external  stimulus,  as  for  instance  perceptions  of  sound 
or  colour  may  be  said  to  be  induced,  is  induced  according  to  some 
more  or  less  wrell  defined  rules  by  some  previous  psychic  state. 
Thus,  suppose  a  man  has  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  word  "black" 
presented  to  his  mind,  it  may  well  be  that  this  idea  will  be  im- 

17 


18  On  The  Assumptions  of  Psycho- 

mediately  succeeded  in  his  mind  by  the  idea  conveyed  by  the 
word  "white"  because  he  has  been  in  the  habit  of  contrasting 
black  with  white.  When  he  hears  of  a  bicycle  accident  it  may 
well  be  that  there  comes  into  his  mind  some  other  accident  in 
which  he  himself  played  some  part.  The  relations  which  suc- 
cessive ideas  bear  to  one  another  have  been  classified  and  upon 
this  classification  has  been  erected  a  more  ov  less  definite  body 
of  rules  called  the  laws  of  association  according  to  which,  it  is 
believed,  ideas  succeed  one  another  if  undisturbed  by  any  external 
stimulus. 

Now  the  theory  upon  which  psycho-analysis,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  is  based  is  really  made  up  out  of  these  two  theories. 
The  way  in  which  it  works  out  in  practice  can,  perhaps,  best  be 
seen  by  examining  an  actual  instance.  The  example  is  taken 
from  Professor  Freud's  book  "The  Psychopathology  of  Every- 
day Life."  The  Professor  was  one  day  talking  with  a  friend 
who  happened  also  to  be  a  Jew.  The  conversation  turned  upon 
the  bad  treatment  of  Jews  in  certain  countries  and  the  Professor's 
friend  chanced  to  make  a  quotation  from  Virgil  to  the  effect 
that  he  hoped  their  posterity  wrould  avenge  them.  From  the 
quotation  as  he  made  it  the  word  "aliquis"  was  omitted  and 
when  Professor  Freud  called  his  attention  to  it  he  challenged 
him  to  explain  this  lapse  of  memory.  The  Professor  accepted 
the  challenge  and  proceeded  as  follows.  He  asked  his  friend 
first  what  associations  the  word  "aliquis"  had  in  his  mind.  The 
answer  wTas  that  he  at  first  tended  to  think  of  it  as  divided  into 
two  parts:  a-liquis.  After  this  the  train  of  association  was 
roughly  as  follows:  liquis — a  reliquary  at  Trent  in  which  the 
bones  of  St.  Simon  were  preserved — St.  Benedict — St.  Augustine 
—St.  Januarius — the  annual  miracle  of  St.  Januarius  at  Naples 
in  which  the  blood  of  the  saint  liquefies — the  occasion  during  the 
French  occupation  on  which  the  miracle  very  nearly  failed— 
and,  last,  an  intrigue  which  he  had  lately  been  carrying  on  at 
Naples  with  a  lady,  and  about  which  he  was  anxious  lest  it 
should  lead  to  embarrassing  results.  The  Professor  claims  not 
only  that  by  means  of  this  train  of  association  he  w7as  enabled  to 
discover  a  repression  which  was  weighing  on  his  friend's  mind 
but  also  that  this  repression  was  the  cause  of  the  lapse  of  mem- 
ory through  which  the  word  "aliquis"  was  forgotten. 

Now  I  would  not  dispute  that  what  are  called  repressions 
may  in  fact  have  a  very  serious  effect  on  the  psychic  condition 
of  the  subject.  What  I  do  feel  inclined  to  dispute  is  that  every 


Adrian  Stephen  19 


abnormal  state  of  mind  which  leads  to  the  discovery  in  the  sub- 
ject of  a  repression  is  necessarily  the  result  of  that  repression. 
It  may  be  the  result  of  that  repression  and  in  many  cases  pro- 
bably is,  but  I  do  wish  to  suggest  that  in  many  cases  also  it 
probably  is  not,  and  that  by  accepting  the  theory  of  psycho- 
analysis as  it  at  present  stands  we  are  very  likely  to  make  grave 
mistakes. 

To  return  to  the  example:  Professor  Freud  claims  to  have 
discovered  the  origin  of  a  lapse  of  memory  simply  by  taking  the 
word  which  was  forgotten  and  tracing  the  mental  connections 
of  that  word  in  the  mind  of  his  friend  until  he  came  upon  an 
important  repression.  Now  I  quite  agree  that  by  his  method 
the  Professor  has  in  fact  discovered  what  may  possibly  have  been 
the  cause  of  many  mental  aberrations  on  the  part  of  his  friend, 
but  I  see  no  evidence  at  all  that  he  has  discovered  what  was  the 
cause  of  this  particular  aberration. 

What  I  believe  to  be  the  truth  is  something  like  this:  That 
whatever  idea  wras  presented  to  the  mind  of  the  subject  it  would 
probably  have  led  to  the  same  result.  Let  us  say,  to  take  an 
instance  at  haphazard,  that  the  Professor  had  shown  his  friend 
a  waste  paper  basket;  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  train  of  associa- 
tion called  up  in  his  mind  might  have  been  something  like  this  :-— 
Waste,  paper  basket — the  withies  of  which  it  is  made — the  water 
in  which  they  grew — other  liquids — blood — St.  Januarius  and 
so  on  pursuing  the  same  train  of  associations  as  was  in  fact 
pursued.  My  point  is  that  there  is  no  topic  so  remote  from  any 
other  that  by  following  a  train  of  associated  ideas  you  cannot 
get  from  one  to  the  other.  Further,  I  believe  that  if  there  is  any 
topic  in  which  any  man  happens  to  take  an  extreme  interest  his 
thoughts  from  whatever  starting  point  they  set  out  will  constantly 
tend  to  return  to  it.  Thus  if  I  am  just  about  to  be  married  any 
mention  of  shops  is  likely  to  suggest  something  I  have  bought  for 
my  bride  and  so  back  to  my  wedding.  There  seems  to  be  a 
kind  of  attractive  force  in  topics  which  are  of  great  interest  to  us 
which  causes  our  thoughts  always  to  return  to  them.  We  may 
not  return  immediately — our  thoughts  may,  in  accordance  with 
what  are  called  the  laws  of  Association,  proceed  by  devious 
routes  as,  in  the  case  which  I  quoted,  the  word  "aliquis"  did 
not  lead  at  once  to  the  lady  at  Naples,  but  led  by  way  of  relics 
and  St.  Benedict  till  eventually  it  reached  St.  Januarius  who 
happened  to  be  very  closely  connected  with  Naples  where  the 
affair  took  place  which  was  weighing  on  the  subject's  mind. 


20  On  The  Assumptions  of  Psycho- Analysts 

AY hon  the  train  of  thought  got  as  close  to  the  repression  as  St. 
Januarius  the  "attractive  force"  as  it  were  of  the  repression  was 
enough  to  take  it  the  whole  way.  Sooner  or  later  wherever  he 
started  the  subject  was  certain  to  hit  upon  some  thought  which 
had  a  close  connection  with  his  repression  and  then  his  repression 
was  revealed. 

To  argue  from  this  fact  that  it  was  the  repression  which 
caused  the  original  forgetfulness  which  started  the  enquiry  seems 
to  me  quite  unwarrantable.  I  believe  that  almost  whatever 
topic  Professor  Freud  had  started,  say  as  I  have  suggested  it  was 
a  waste  paper  basket,  the  result  would  have  been  just  the  same. 
The  result  would  probably  have  been  just  the  same  even  if  Pro- 
fessor Freud  had  chosen  as  his  starting  point  the  first  idea  which 
came  into  his  own  mind,  so  as  to  preclude  absolutely  the  possi- 
bility of  its  being  his  friend's  repression  that  had  originated  it. 
I  would  also  here  point  out  that  the  longer  the  train  of  associa- 
tions by  which  we  are  led  from  our  starting  point  to  the  discovery 
of  the  repression  the  greater  the  number  of  side  tracks,  as  it 
were,  all  leading  eventually  to  the  same  end,  shall  we  find  by  the 
way.  Professor  Freud  is  very  pleased  because  in  the  train  of 
associations  which  I  have  cited  there  occur  the  names  of  two 
saints,  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Januarius,  which  are  closely  con- 
nected with  the  calendar,  and  it  may  well  be  supposed  that  any 
one  suffering  from  the  particular  repression  from  which  the  Pro- 
fessor's friend  was  suffering  might  be  particularly  interested  in 
the  calendar.  Further  St.  Simon,  whose  name  also  occurs,  was 
sacrificed  as  a  child  and  the  Professor  suggests  that  the  sup- 
pressed fear  that  a  child  might  be  born  might  be  the  cause  of  the 
appearance  of  this  name.  Howrever,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  always 
easy  to  lead  by  a  train  of  associations  from  any  one  point  to  any 
other  and  there  are  usually  many  different  ways  of  doing  so. 
Thus  in  the  imaginary  case  that  I  have  myself  given,  beginning 
with  the  waste  paper  basket  we  might  proceed,  not  by  the  way 
by  which  I  did  proceed  via  the  withies,  the  water,  the  blood,  and 
St.  Januarius  to  the  lady,  but  by  a  much  more  direct  route.  We 
might  well  proceed  via  the  basket  in  which  the  baby  Moses  was 
discovered  in  the  rushes  and,  by  the  way,  as  the  Professor's 
friend  was  a  Jew,  this  route  would  have  been  extremely  appro- 
priate. Not  only,  however,  are  there  as  a  rule  many  different 
easy  ways  from  the  starting  point  to  the  goal,  but  there  are  also 
as  a  rule  many  easy  ways  from  each  intermediate  step  to  the 
goal,  so  that  the  mere  fact  that  we  can  find  many  different  kinds 


Adrian  Stephen  21 


of  connections  from  the  one  end  of  our  train  of  association  to  the 
other  will  not  help  Professor  Freud's  contention  in  the  least. 
The  fact  is  that  the  more  remote  his  starting  point  is  from  his 
goal  the  more  routes  are  there  likely  to  be  which  will  bring  him 
safely  to  port  and  therefore  the  more  material  will  there  be  for 
the  construction  of  a  satisfactory  proof. 

Now  it  is  quite  possible  that  it  is  of  no  importance  whether 
my  ideas  be  right  and  Professor  Freud's  wrong  from  the  point  of 
view  of  therapeutics.  I  do  not  deny  that  repressions  may  be  of 
the  gravest  importance  and  that  they  can  be  discovered  by  the 
method  of  psycho-analysis  and  subsequently  cured.  What  I  do 
deny  is  that  this  fact  supplies  any  evidence  at  all  that  all  the 
psychic  phenomena  which,  taken  as  starting  points,  lead  to  the 
discovery  of  repressions,  are  necessarily  the  result  of  those  re- 
pressions. It  is  quite  possible  indeed  that  in  connection  with 
matters  very  closely  associated  with  the  repression  there  may, 
as  a  result  of  the  repression,  be  psychic  aberrations,  and  that 
the  examination  of  the  aberrations  may  lead  to  the  discovery 
of  this  repression.  But  it  is  also  possible  that  there  may  be 
mental  aberrations  or  even  quite  ordinary  normal  mental  states 
which  have  no  causal  connection  whatever  with  repressions  other 
than  that  which  every  later  mental  state  may  be  said  to  have 
with  every  earlier  mental  state,  which  will  yet,  as  a  result  of 
psycho-analysis,  lead  equally  to  the  discovery  of  the  repression. 
Thus,  one  of  the  most  common  forms  of  repression  is  connected 
with  sex.  Suppose  a  man  who  has  a  sexual  repression  dreams 
of  a  walking  stick  which  he  has  just  been  given  as  a  birthday 
present.  On  being  asked  what  a  walking  stick  reminded  him 
of  it  is  very  possible  that  this  man  would  soon  mention  a  sexual 
object — certain  superficial  external  resemblances  might  well 
call  such  an  object  to  his  mind.  Professor  Freud  would  there- 
upon claim  that  the  dream  of  the  walking  stick  was  caused  by 
the  sexual  repression.  The  point  which  I  desire  to  make  is  that 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing  this  to  be  the  case. 
There  is  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing  that  the  intrigue 
with  the  lady  at  Naples  led  to  the  momentary  forgetting  of  the 
word  "aliquis"  even  though  the  forgetting  of  the  word  "aliquis" 
led  back  ultimately  to  the  discovery  of  the  repression  connected 
with  the  intrigue. 

One  more  point  I  would  add  especially  as  I  have  been  con- 
sidering largely  cases  of  sexual  repression.  There  is  a  fact  which 
I  think  psycho-analysts  would  do  well  to  bear  in  mind  whether 


22  On  The  Assumptions  of  Psycho-Analysts 

they  are  interpreting  the  "symbolism"  of  dreams  or  for  what- 
ever purpose  they  are  employing  psycho-analysis.  I  think 
they  would  do  well  to  remember  that  all  physical  objects  are 
either  perfectly  spherical  or  longer  in  one  diameter  than  in 
another.  They  should  therefore  be  careful  in  saying  that  a 
rounded  object  occurring  to  the  mind  is  symbolical  of  the  rounded 
forms  of  a  woman's  figure  or  that  an  oblong  object  is  necessarily 
phallic.  Judged  according  to  the  canons  of  evidence  which  seem 
now  to  be  observed  in  the  courts  of  the  psycho-analyst  and 
living,  as  we  at  all  events  apparently  do,  surrounded  by  a  three 
dimentional  space,  there  are  few  of  us  who  can  hope  to  be  ac- 
quitted of  something  very  like  sexual  mania,  for  not  only  do  the 
psycho-analysts  seem  to  regard  any  idea  which  may  be  treated 
as  sexually  symbolical  as  necessarily  the  outcome  of  a  sexual 
repression  when  a  sexual  repression  has  been  shown  actually  to 
exist  but  they  go  one  step  further  and  infer  the  existence  of  a 
sexual  repression  from  the  mere  occurrence  of  "symbols." 


A  CLINICAL  STUDY  OF  THE  ORIGIN,  DEVELOPMENT 
AND  DISAPPEARANCE  OF  A  SYSTEM  OF  DELUSIONS 


BY  L.   E.  EMERSON,  PH.  D. 

PSYCHOLOGIST,    MASSACHUSETTS  GENERAL  HOS.  ITAL;    EXAMIXER  IN  PSYCHOPA1HOLOGY-, 
PSYCHOPATHIC  HOSPITAL,    BOSTON,  MASS. 

THE  delusions  this  person  suffered  from  were  of  the 
following  character.  She  thought  ministers  preached 
about  her  in  their  pulpits.  She  thought  sermons  about 
her  were  being  published  in  the  daily  papers.  She 
thought  people  passing  in  the  street  took  especial  notice  of  her 
arid  made  remarks  to  each  other  about  her.  She  thought 
her  business  associates,  for  she  is  a  working  woman,  talked 
about  her  among  themselves;  and  the  chance  phrases,  words,  or 
even  syllables  she  sometimes  overheard,  she  interpreted  as 
referring  to  her  in  adverse  criticism. 

The  content  of  these  delusions  was  to  the  effect  that  she 
was  immoral.  That  was  why  ministers  preached  and  papers 
published  sermons  about  her.  That  was  why  people  on  the 
street  noticed  her  and  made  slurring  remarks  about  her  and  why 
her  associates  also  did  the  same  thing.  She  was  in  despair. 

In  her  own  mind,  the  way  people  got  this  idea  of  her  was 
through  the  fact  that  she  had  the  habit  of  "looking"  where  she 
"ought  not  to,"  (the  abdominal  region  of  men)  seemingly  fasci- 
nated. This  was  noticed  and  thus  her  habit  became  known, 
she  thought.  Naturally,  therefore,  in  her  opinion,  she  was  re- 
garded as  immoral,  although  nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
fact. 

These  delusions  took  such  firm  hold  of  her  that  she  almost 
gave  up  her  work  and  moved  away.  She  cut  clippings  of  ser- 
mons to  prove  her  assertions  and  demanded  that  her  friends,, 
associates,  and  the  townspeople  should  be  assured  of  the  fact 
that  she  really  was  "good,"  though  troubled  by  a  bad  habit  she 
could  not  control.  As  is  always  the  case  in  delusions,  she  was 
almost  absolutely  impervious  to  argument  or  reason. 


24  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Systam  of  Delusions 

What,  now,  was  the  origin  of  this  obsessive-tike  tendency 
to  "look"  with  the  consequent  development  into  delusions? 

Innate,  congenital  conditions  were  the  soil,  so  to  speak,  in 
which  the  obsession,  and  the  delusions  sprouted  and  grew.  The 
origin  and  course  of  their  development,  sketched  out  in  the. 
large,  was  somewrhat  as  follows: 

This  person  found  herself  possessed  of  powerful  passions. 
"When  I  want  anything  I  want  it  so  terribly  I  am  afraid,"  she 
said.  In  this  respect  she  was  like  her  mother,  who  was  a  very 
passionate  woman.  But  her  mother  gave  more  or  less  free  rein 
to  her  feelings  and  her  daughter  hated  it  and  resolved  to  be  as 
different  from  her  mother  as  she  possibly  could,  so,  although 
she  might  be  on  fire  within,  she  refused  expressing  it  without 
and  thus  repressed,  successfully,  her  instinctive  feelings. 

Because  she  disliked  her  mother  so  intensely,  and  because 
she  feared  her  own  passionate  desires  might  lead  her  into  immoral 
actions,  she  carried  over  this  feeling  even  to  her  own  sex -and  to 
defend  herself  against  her  woman's  instinctive  desires,  came  to 
dislike,  intensely  -being  a  woman.  Trying  to  escape  being  a 
woman,  she  desired  intensely  to  be  a  man  and  did  everything 
possible,  in  thought,  word  and  deed,  to  become  as  completely  as 
possible  manlike.  She  had  a  man's  ambitions,  socially  and  pro- 
fessionally. She  wrished,  intensely,  to  dominate  any  situation 
she  found  herself  in;  she  wished  the  same  sort  of  professional 
success  that  a  man  wishes  for.  She  desired  so  intensely  and  so 
deeply  to  be  a  man,  that  one  night  she  dreamed  she  was  a  man, 
playing  a  man's  part  in  life. 

The  nervous  strain,  as  might  be  expected,  of  a  woman 
trying  to  be  a  man,  was  very  great  and  so  she  became  very  much 
^disturbed,  depressed,  and  psychotic,  as  shown  by  the  obsession. 

Knowing  she  really  was  a  woman,  although  she  wished  she 
were  a  man,  she  did  not  dare  to  go  to  a  man  for  help  for  fear  he 
would  take  advantage  of  her,  but  went  instead  to  a  woman. 

This  wpman  was  very  religious  and  tried  to  help  her  by 
teaching  her  how  to  love,  religiously.  But  she  did  not  realize 
her  patient  was  on  the  very  verge  of  a  psychosis,  and  as  a  result 
of  her  efforts  the  patient  fell  in  love  with  her  instead  of  rising  to 
the  heights  of  religious  love.  This  frightened  her  would-be 
benefactor  and  she  therefore  withdrew  her  efforts  to  help.  Thus 
the  patient  was  thrown  on  her  own  resources. 

It  was  shortly  after  this  that  she  developed  her  delusions. 

Blocked  in  every  direction,  the  patient's  love-instinct,  or 


L.  E.  Emerson  25 


desire  to  get  and  to  give  affection,  degenerated,  first  into  an 
obsession,  and  then  into  delusions. 

I  say  "blocked  in  every  direction"  for  these  reasons:  In- 
tellectually she  found  it  discouragingly  difficult  to  rise  to  any 
sufficient  height  of  abstract,  or  symbolical,  form  of  mental  life, 
and  so  finding  an  even  approximately  adequate  outlet  in  that 
direction  for  her  unconscious  mental  energies.  She  had  little  or 
no  opportunity  and  was  incapable  of  working  very  successfully 
in  Art,  Literature,  Philosophy  or  Religion.  Thus  these  avenues 
of  escape,  these  deliverances  for  her  soul  were  blocked.  She 
could  not  "love"  women  because  she  was  a  woman,  and  other 
wromen  would  not  allow  her  to  love  them — it  frightened  and 
repelled  them — and  besides  she  herself  did  not  want  to  love 
women  because  of  her  mother,  and  because  of  a  deep  biological 
instinct,  probably  against  it.  She  could  not  "love"  men,  or  a 
man,  because  of  its  danger.  She  was  afraid,  she  said,  if  she 
allowed  herself  to  love  a  man,  that  he  would  take  advantage  of 
her,  and  that  she  would  thus  become  immoral.  Besides,  she  did 
not  want  to  "love"  a  man,  she  wanted  to  "be"  a  man — and  she 
could  not,  so  every  movement  of  her  spirit  seemed  blocked. 

The  patient  was  very  much  in  the  position  of  an  aphasic 
who,  after  trying  again,  and  again,  to  express  himself,  bursts 
into  tears.  A  transitory  delusion  appeared  and  disappeared 
during  the  course  of  the  treatment.  I  had  said,  merely  em- 
phasizing what  she  already  had  said  herself,  that  she  was  obvious- 
ly a  passionate  woman,  and  thinking  it  over  she  decided  that 
negroes  were  the  most  passionate  people  she  knew  anything 
about.  Then  she  thought  people  thought  she  was  a  negro,  in 
disguise.  She  imagined  they  made  remarks  about  her  negro 
origin,  and  negro  blood.  She  thought,  herself,  that  perhaps  her 
mother  had  negro  blood  in  her  and  had  concealed  it.  This  soon 
passed  away,  however. 

This,  in  brief,  is  an  outline  sketch  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  a  system  of  delusions  of  persecution  and  ideas  of  refer- 
ence, starting  in  an  obsession. 

Let  me  now  show  how  the  delusions  disappeared;  the  ob- 
session dwindled  and  in  its  turn,  too,  disappeared;  and  how  the 
recovery  of  the  diseased  psyche  began  through  emotional  orienta- 
tion followed  by  a  steady  progress  towards  complete  mental 
health:  and  how  a  normal  functioning  of  a  social  self  among 
other  social  beings  in  society  became  possible. 


26  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  System  of  Delusions 

The  first  step  towards  recovery  was  taken  when  the  patient 
became  willing  to  talk,  more  or  less  freely,  about  her  trouble. 
She  then  began  slowly  to  understand  it.  Instead  of  repression, 
expression  took  place.  This,  alone,  relieved  some  of  the  inner 
tension,  or  nervous  pressure,  so  to  speak,  and  was  a  necessary- 
preliminary  to  the  next  step.  The  improvement  shown  here 
consisted  in  a  lessening  of  the  depression;  the  emotional  states 
themselves  became  less  intense;  and  a  higher  grade  of  conscious, 
purposive  thinking  became  not  only  possible,  but  actually  took 
place  and  was  apparent. 

The  next  step  in  recovery  came  almost  immediately  follow- 
ing the  appreciation  and  understanding,  by  the  patient,  of  the 
intensity  and  repression  of  her  desire  to  be  a  man.  Soon  after 
this  discovery  was  made  by  her,  her  delusions  disappeared. 
"People  stopped  referring"  to  her  on  the  street;  her  associates 
no  longer  made  veiled  remarks  about  her  morality;  and  no  ser- 
mons were  preached  or  published  about  her.  This  disappearance 
of  her  delusions  took  place  about  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  and  there 
has  been  no  sign  of  their  return  since.  On  the  contrary  she  now 
sees  how  they  might  have  started  in  thoughts  about  matters  of 
fact,  which,  falsely  enlarged,  and  transferred,  gradually  became 
delusions  through  the  force  of  emotions  of  the  origin  and  nature 
of  which  she  was  unconscious. 

With  the  disappearance  of  the  delusions  went  also  the 
obsession.  Thus  the  patient  became  emotionally  orientated 
and  normally  self -controlled. 

The  relation  between  the  obsession  in  this  case  and  the 
delusions  seems  to  me  interesting.  It  would  seem  to  be,  either, 
that  the  obsession  was  a  sort  of  forerunner  of  the  delusions,  or 
developed  into  them,  or,  that  both  obsession  and  delusions  were 
but  different  symptom  forms,  the  one  being  abnormal  "looking, " 
the  other  being  abnormal  "thinking,"  of  a  deeper,  underlying 
dynamic  condition. 

In  this  case,  therefore,  obsession  and  delusions  are  similar^ 
as  symptoms,  but  in  themselves,  I  think,  they  are  different. 

The  obsession  is  only  an  intensified  and  persistent  reaction, 
the  inherent  nature  of  which  remains  unchanged.  The  delusions > 
however,  are  of  the  nature  of  mirror  space,"  or  a  "reflection," 
which  comes  back  to  the  observer  "reversed,"  and  therefore 
not  "true."  In  other  words  the  patient  "projects"  her  own 
thoughts  into  the  sounds  she  hears,  and  coloring  them  with  her 
own  emotions,  gets  them  back,  so  to  speak,  as  if  from  the  objec- 


L.  E.  Emerson 


tive  world.  This  is  why  argument  is  of  no  avail  in  combatting 
delusions;  as  indeed,  however,  it  is  of  little  avail  in  combatting 
obsessions.  A  delusion,  is  a  delusion,  because  the  emotional 
intensity  with  which  an  idea  is  shot  forth,  so  to  speak,  sends  it 
back  with  reversed  direction  and  its  falsity  consists  in  its  reversal, 
not  in  the  logical  nature  of  the  idea  itself.  Therefore,  to  remove 
delusions,  as  well  as  obsessions,  the  emotional  tension  behind 
the  ideas  or  actions  must  be  relieved;  only  then  can  the  mind 
perceive  the  falseness  of  direction  which  constitutes  the  delusional 
or  obsessional  aspects  of  such  an  idea. 

James  defines  a  delusion  as  a  false  idea  about  a  matter  of 
fact.  Now  ideas  are  dynamic  things;  they  are  tendencies 
toward  an  object.  Their  falseness,  if  they  are  false,  consists 
in  pointing  in  the  wrong  direction,  so  that  if  the  one  who  possesses 
them  tries  to  follow  them  out  he  w^on't  get  to  his  object,  the 
"matter  of  fact."  Therefore,  if  the  idea  is  that  other  people 
are  thinking  of  one,  when  there  is  every  reason  in  the  world  for 
not  believing  the  idea,  its  falseness  consists  in  its  inward  moving 
appearance,  when  really  its  movement  is  outward,  or  projecting, 
from  the  one  who  has  it,  into  the  one  from  whom  it  is  supposed 
to  come. 

In  showing,  therefore,  the  emotional  accompaniment  of 
the  ideas  which  pushed  them  into  obsessions  and  delusions,  I 
hope  I  have  made  a  little  clearer,  perhaps,  the  origin,  develop- 
ment and  disappearance  of  this  particular  system  of  delusions. 

Another  thing  has  to  be  taken  account  of  in  this  connection 
and  that  is  the  fact  that  the  emotion,  or  feeling,  properly  belong- 
ing to  one  idea  or  situation  may  be  dissociated  from  its  proper 
companion  and  reassociated  with  some  other  set  of  ideas  or 
situations.  This  process  takes  place  unconsciously  to  the  person 
thus  afflicted  so  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  see  the  psychological 
situation  as  it  really  is.  This  is  another  rea'son  why  argument 
is  of  no  avail,  and  other  help  is  necessary.  Only  after  the  inner 
turbulence  of  the  feelings  and  emotions  has  somewhat  subsided 
can  the  victim  perceive  himself  as  others  really  see  him.  And 
he  can  only  get  what  others  see  if  others  will  take  the  trouble  to- 
tell  him,  after  he  is  willing  to,  or  can,  listen.  This  is  why  a  de- 
luded person  cannot  cure  himself.  He  cannot  see  himself. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  important  to  notice  in  such  cases  as  these 
that  there  is  an  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the  person  to  other 
persons'  opinions.  This  patient  said,  "People  hurt  me.  I 
can't  bear  to  speak  to  them  in  the  street,  lest  I  cry. "  Probably 


28  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  System  of  Delusions 

a  reason  for  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  these  people  feel  themselves 
unable  to  hold  their  own  in  social  situations,  together  with  the 
fact  that  their  social  instinct  is  very  highly  developed  so  that 
any  social  danger  is  exaggerated  because  of  an  intense  desire  for 
"perfect"  social  relations.  Such  people  simply  cannot  bear 
the  inevitable,  if  not  necessary,  imperfections  of  all  real  social 
activities. 

'The  fiend  that  man  harries 
Is  love  of  the  best. " 

The  best  things  on  earth,  perhaps,  are  the  most  nearly 
perfect  social  relations  that  are  humanly  possible;  but  if  one 
cannot  bear  present  imperfection,  while  he  is  working  for  its 
betterment,  he  is  in  danger  of  a  nervous  or  mental  disorganiza- 
tion. To  help  reorganize  a  disorganized  person  it  is  necessary 
to  know  something  about  the  factors  involved.  To  show  some 
of  these  factors,  acting  out  their  results,  is  the  purpose  of  this 
paper. 


DR.    PRINCE   AND    THE   QUESTION   OF   THE 
SUBCONSCIOUS 

BY   H.    W.    CHASE 

PROFESSOR   OF    PSYCHOLOGY,    UNIVERSITY   OF    NORTH    CAROLINA 

A  criticism  of  experimental  findings  in  terms  of  a  theoretical 
viewpoint  is  likely  to  leave  matters  about  where  it  found 
them,  especially  when  the  critic  lacks  first-hand  knowl- 
ledge  of  the  experiments  which  he  presumes  to  discuss. 
The  stimulating  paper  by  Dr.  Prince,  however,  in  a  recent  number 
of  this  Journal,1  raises  an  issue  which  is  of  such  interest    that 
perhaps  some  discussion  of  its  findings  may  be  pardoned. 

In  this  paper  are  described  phenomena  which,  in  the  author's 
words,  "afford  direct  evidence  of  specific  subconscious  processes 
occurring  under  certain  conditions. "  The  subjects,  three  in 
number,  were  able,  through  retrospection  in  hypnosis,  to  recall 
"coconscious"  images,  usually  visual,  sometimes  auditory,  which 
had  never  entered  the  field  of  consciousness,  and  were  not  integral 
elements  of  the  conscious  stream  of  thought  at  the  time  of  their 
original  occurrence.  The  results  were  obtained  many  times, 
and  "there  was  never  any  doubt  about  them  as  memories,  nor 
any  doubt  about  them  as  previous  realities,  that  is  to  say,  real 
psychical  occurrences. " 

Admitting,  as  there  is  every  reason  to  do,  the  good  faith 
and  competency  of  the  observers,  and  the  significance  of  the 
results,  the  question  may  none  the  less  be  raised  whether  these 
results  do  offer  direct  proof  of  the  existence  of  subconscious 
mental  processes. 

The  argument  may  best  take  its  start  from  a  typical  case 
cited  by  Dr.  Prince.  One  subject,  in  hypnosis,  was  told  that 
upon  awakening,  at  the  moment  that  the  physician  performed 
a  specified  act,  she  would  walk  across  the  room  to  a  couch,  pick 
up  a  leather  case  there  lying,  and  take  out  a  key  which  had  been 
placed  within  it.  This  she  did,  and  was  unable  to  give  any 
explanation  of  her  act — becoming  embarrassed  when  its  propriety 
was  questioned.  But,  again  hypnotized  and  asked  what  made 
her  do  as  she  did,  she  replied,  "Why,  pictures  of  myself  doing 

'Prince,  Morton.     Cocunscious  Images.     Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  Vol.  li,  1;)17 
p.  289. 

29 


30  Dr.  Prince  and  the  Question  of  the  Subconscious 

it,"  pictures  of  which  she  was  not  consciously  aware  while  the 
act  was  being  performed,  but  to  whose  existence  as  "real  psychi- 
cal occurrences"  her  e  planation  testified. 

In  any  discussion  of  the  significance  of  this  and  similar  ex- 
periences, it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  carefully  between  facts 
and  hypotheses.  The  facts  are  that  the  subject  testified— 
translating  her  report  into  somewhat  more  formal  terms — that 
when  asked  (in  hypnosis)  why  she  behaved  as  she  did  toward 
the  box,  images  of  herself  opening  the  box  and  taking  out  the  key 
appeared,  and  that  these  images  were  thought  of  as  having 
occurred  in  the  actual  previous  situation,  though  she  was  not  at 
that  time  aware  of  their  occurrence.  That  is,  the  images  of  the 
second  experience  (in  hypnosis)  had  the  stamp  of  familiarity, 
were  recognized. 

Dr.  Prince's  implicit  assumption  is  that  this  feeling  that  the 
images  were  familiar,  that  they  could  be  located  in  the  past, 
can  be  explained  only  in  terms  of  a  previous  mental  (in  this  case 
coconscious)  process  which  is  regarded  as  its  causal. 

There  is,  however,  another  possible  point  of  view.  Every- 
one would  admit  that  both  the  original  and  the  revived  experi- 
ences were  accompanied  by  complex  neural  activity.  Let  us 
suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  images  did  not  occur  as  psychical 
realities  in  the  original  experience,  but  that  this  could  be  describ- 
ed purely  in  physiological  terms.  There  was  complex  cortical 
activity,  A,  but  no  image,  A'.  This  cortical  activity  involved 
those  patterns  whose  activity,  had  it  been  accompanied  by  any 
mental  experience,  would  have  been  accompanied  by  the  image 
A'.  At  the  same  time  other  neural  activities  wTere  going  on, 
some  of  them  attended  by  conscious  processes,  some  not.  The 
subject,  that  is,  was  being  stimulated  by  the  physician's  behavior, 
by  the  surroundings  in  the  room,  etc.  We  may  call  these  "ac- 
cessory" cortical  activities  (which  furnished, .  so  to  speak,  the 
"setting"  of  the  original  experience),  B,  C,  D,  etc.;  leaving  out 
of  account  the  question  of  which  of  these  were  conscious. 

Now  comes  the  revival  of  the  experience.  The  stimulus  of 
the  physician's  question  (in  hypnosis)  causes  the  revival  of 
cortical  activity  A.  At  the  same  time  (because  of  the  neural 
associations  set  up  during  the  original  experience)  it  causes  a 
partial  arousal  of  neural  processes,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  which  were 
accessory  to  the  original  experience.  Because  of  the  altered 
conditions,  the  total  neural  activity,  A,  B,  D,  C,  is  this  time 
accompanied  by  a  mental  experience;  images  appear  (A')  and 


H.  W.  Chase  31 


these  are  characterized  by  a  feeling  due  to  the  modification  of 
the  total  conscious  process  by  neural  activities  B,  C,  D,  etc. 
These  latter,  activities,  so  to  speak,  are  symbolized  to  the  sub- 
ject by  the  "feeling  that  the  images  were  familiar." 

On  such  an  assumption,  the  final  conscious  experience  is  to 
be  explained  in  toto  by  the  neural  activities  which  went  on  during 
the  original  and  the  revived  experience.  The  explanatory  se- 
quence is  thought  of  as  describable  in  terms  of  neurones,  not  of 
ideas.  The  original  experience  may  have  been  wholly  physio- 
logical. The  evidence  that  it  was  not  is  altogether  indirect: 
"all  takes  place  as  if  there  were  this  subconscious  process." 

To  sum  up:  One  may  take  the  position  that  one  mental 
process,  or  a  characteristic  thereof,  can  be  explained  only  in 
terms  of  another  mental  process.  This  assumption  Dr.  Prince 
implicitly  makes,  and,  once  made,  his  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  subconscious  mental  processes  is  direct.  Or  the  position 
may  be  taken  that  the  chain  of  causation  is  never  between  idea 
and  idea,  always  between  neural  activity  and  neural  activity. 
In  this  case  we  have  direct  evidence  that  the  sort  of  neural 
activity  went  on  in  the  first  experience  which,  had  it  been  ac- 
companied by  mental  states,  would  have  been  accompanied  by 
the  sort  of  images  in  question,  but  no  direct  evidence  that  the 
assumed  subconscious  mental  states  did  occur. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  mental  states  are  not  regarded  as 
causes,  it  becomes,  from  any  pragmatic  standpoint,  quite  imma- 
terial whether  the  assumed  coconscious  (mental)  states  did  or 
did  not  occur.  The  fact  that  behavior  was  controlled  by  a 
certain  type  of  neural  activity  is  the  important  practical  point. 

Dr.  Prince  has  then  not  shown  (unless  his  fundamental 
assumption  that  mental  states  are  causes  be  admitted)  that 
subconscious  psychic  states  exist.  But  he  has  shown  something 
more  important  than  this;  he  has  thrown  light  on  the  kind  of 
neural  activities  which  are  constantly  going  on,  without  conscious 
accompaniment,  and  which  play  a  large  part  in  regulating  be- 
havior. To  center  the  debate  about  the  attempt  to  prove,  or  to 
disprove,  that  such  processes  have  a  psychical  quality  about 
them,  is  to  make  of  what  is  really  a  minor  issue  the  main  point 
of  dispute.  The  patient  of  course  reports  them  as  though  they 
were  mental;  can  of  course  report  them  in  no  other  terms,  since 
he  can  report  in  speech  only  those  processes  which,  either  at  the 
time  of  their  original  occurrence  or  later  on  are  accompanied  by 

2They  are  the  setting  which  give  the  idea  its  moaning  us  "something  which  has  1<eon  oxpcri- 
nn"fl  hffore  <n    r<h  and  such  an  occasion." 


.'>*>  Dr.  Prince  and  the  Question  of  the  Subconscious 

consciousness.  The  importance  of  his  report  is,  however,  so  far 
as  its  significance  in  explaining  his  behavior  is  concerned,  the 
testimony  which  it  gives  as  to  the  particular  habit-patterns  in 
his  cortex  which  were  functioning.  This  is  the  point  about 
which  Dr.  Prince  gives  us  direct  evidence.  His  findings  lose 
nothing  of  their  significance  if  the  whole  "mental  but  subcon- 
scious" question  is  relegated — as  it  should  be — to  a  footnote 
for  the  edification  of  those  whose  interests  are  chiefly  meta- 
physical. To  rephrase  some  of  Dr.  Prince's  conclusions  in 
neural  terms,  he  has  shown  that  elaborate  neural  processes  go  on 
which  are  not  accompanied  by  ideas,  that  these  are  sufficiently 
like  cortical  processes  which  are  accompanied  by  conscious 
states  that  they  stimulate  to  activity  neural  patterns  which, 
when  they  are  accompanied  by  mental  states  at  all,  are  accom- 
panied by  the  sort  of  mental  state  called  an  "image;"  that 
neural  activities  which  go  on  without  consciousness  result  in 
modifications  and  elaborations  of  the  neural  patterns  concerned, 
some  of  which  elaborations  may  later  "break  through  into" 
consciousness;  that  conscious  behavior,  including  emotional 
reactions,  somatic  phenomena,  and  the  sequence  of  ideas,  may 
be  motivated  or  determined  by  such  neural  activities. 

Such  facts  are  extremely  important  for  all  who  are  interested 
in  explaining  human  behavior.  Why  should  the  value  of  such 
a  real  contribution  be  clouded  by  insistence  on  a  theory  of  mental 
causation  which,  as  knowledge  accumulates,  becomes  less  and 
less  acceptable  to  the  majority  of  students  of  human  nature? 


BY   C.    STANFORD   READ  M.    D. 

MAJOR  R.  A.  M.  C.  OFFICER  IN  CHARGE,  "D"  BLOCK,  XETLEY 

EPILEPSY  and  epileptoid  states  have  always,  as  regards" 
their  pathology , been  wrapped  in  obscurity,  though  some 
observers  have  laid  down  dogmatic  theories  which  are 
found  to  be  untenable  on  subsequent  investigation.  As 
has  been  frequently  pointed  out  of  late  years,  the  most  obvious 
and  really  the  most  inessential  part  of  the  disease  has  been 
studied  almost  ad  nauseam,  i.  e.  the  convulsion  itself,  whereas 
the  interparoxysmal  period  with  its  patent  mental  abnormalities 
has  received  comparatively  little  attention.  It  is  true  that  all 
neurologists  note  the  fact  that  an  epileptic  has  a  more  or  less 
specific  type  of  character  and  they  point  out  his  egotism,  quarrel- 
someness, shallow  religiosity,  etc.,  but  the  deeper  currents  of  his 
mentality,  his  mental  conflicts  and  the  maladapting  factors 
which  are  so  often  seen  prior  to  his  attacks,  have  received  but 
scant  notice.  It  is  also  true  that  the  fits  may  be  replaced  by 
the  exhibition  of  various  anomalous  psychic  phenomena  termed 
"psychic  equivalents,"  but  beyond  their  being  mentioned,  little 
or  no  light  has  been  thrown  on  their  meaning  or  mechanism. 
We  are  much  indebted  to  Pierce  Clarke  of  New  York  for  his 
clinical  studies  in  epilepsy  and  for  his  so  ably  demonstrating  the 
psychogenetic  aspect  of  this  disease.  In  carefully  recorded  case 
histories  he  has  shown  the  type  of  abnormal  mental  factors  that 
slowly  but  surely  get  built  up  into  the  epileptic  character  and 
he  states  that  from  a  minute  study  of  their  reactions  in  early  life 
he  can  recognize  the  prospective  epileptic  and  that  by  suitable 
psychotherapeutic  measures  the  disease  may  be  prevented, 
aborted  or  even  cured.  McCurdy  too  has  pointed  out  that  the 
supervening  dementia  which  seems  later  to  be  just  as  much  a 
part  of  epilepsy  as  the  convulsion,  has  no  real  relationship  with 
organic  deterioration  but  is  due  to  lack  of  environmental  interest 
and  to  the  giving  up  of  the  struggle  to  make  any  adaptation  at 
all.  He  avers  that  by  the  arousing  and  objectivating  of  interest 
the  patient's  seeming  dementia  may  be  relieved  and  even  entirely 

33 


34  A  Study  of  Tiro  Epilepioid  Cases  in  Soldiers 

dissipated.  Maeder  and  Ernest  Jones  have,  in  their  mental 
analyses  of  epileptics  laid  especial  stress  on  the  infantile  and 
perverse  type  of  sexuality  they  show  and  regard  this  as  by  no 
means  the  least  psychogenetic  factor  to  be  dealt  with.  Since  it 
is  becoming  more  and  more  evident  that  the  psychopathology 
of  epilepsy  should  and  doubtless  will  receive  greater  study,  I 
thought  it  would  serve  a  useful  purpose  in  bringing  forward 
the  histories  of  two  cases  who  were  admitted  to  "D"  Block, 
from  France  as  epileptics  who  showed  details  of  great  interest. 
"D"  Block  being  only  a  Clearing  Hospital,  any  deep  study  of 
the  cases  was  unfortunately  not  possible  but  sufficient  was 
elicited  to  show  the  great  importance  of  a  history  taken  from  a 
psychological  standpoint.  Unless  the  medical  officer  is  to  some 
extent  versed  in  the  modern  trends  of  modern  psychopathology, 
much  important  material  in  the  anamnesis  will  not  be  elicited 
and  the  very  mental  factors  which  more  or  less  tend  to  be  the 
*fons  et  origo'  of  the  disease  will  not  see  the  light  of  day.  The 
first  case  exhibited  major  attacks  and  the  second  was  an  anomal- 
ous case  of  petit  mal  with  amnesic  fugues.  Much  interest 
centres  round  the  fact  that  both  cases  exhibited  symptoms  of 
great  violence,  which  falls  in  with  the  theory  that  an  epileptic 
attack  in  some  way  is  an  exhibition  of  intense  resentment  previ- 
ou  sly  repressed. 

Case  1.  J.  C.  A  bandsman,  aged  34  years,  was  admitted 
with  the  following  history  from  France.  "He  has  had  epileptic 
fits  and  after  a  few  clonic  spasms  he  becomes  maniacal  and  once 
had  to  be  held  down  for  three  hours.  He  says  he  has  had  out- 
breaks like  this  before.  They  start  quite  suddenly  and  in  the 
attacks  he  is  injurious  to  others.  He  was  quite  unconscious  and 
had  no  recollection  of  anything  afterwards  but  is  told  he  has 
been  violent.  Later  he  was  perfectly  normal." 

On  admission  he  was  put  to  bed  and  kept  under  special 
observation  in  case  an  attack  might  suddenly  come  on  and  an 
accurate  report  obtained  of  all  that  occurred.  He  stated  he 
felt  quite  well  and  during  the  few  days  he  was  here  no  fit  or  any 
untoward  symptoms  were  seen. 

The  fact  of  his  showing  special  violence  at  the  end  of  his 
convulsion  and  his  remaining  unconscious  such  a  length  of  time 
induced  me  to  enquire  carefully  into  his  psychological  history, 
when  the  following  interesting  data  were  obtained. 

He  was  the  eldest  of  sixteen  children  and  had  had  little  or 
no  serious  illness  with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  usual  childish 


C.  Stanford  Read  35 


ailments.  He  was  specially  attached  to  his  mother  who  was 
always  very  kind  and  good  to  him  and  his  love  and  dependence 
on  her  was  all  the  greater  because  of  the  intense  severity  of  his 
father.  His  father's  treatment  of  him  was  so  cruel  that  he  spent 
a  very  miserable  childhood  till  his  father  died  when  he  was 
twenty-two  years  old.  He  states  that  his  father  was  very  puri- 
tanical and  that  every  harmless  pleasure  was  suppressed;  for 
any  trivial  fault  he  was  punished  unmercifully,  and  on  one 
occasion  he  was  laid  up  for  three  months  because  of  the  brutal 
thrashings  he  had  received.  The  father  was  once  had  up  before 
a  Magistrate's  Court  in  consequence  of  the  treatment  of  his  son 
and  heavily  fined.  He  has  a  highly  vivid  recollection  of  the 
intense  resentment  he  felt  against  his  father;  this  was  intensified 
at  times  by  the  friction  caused  between  the  parents  because  of  his 
father's  attitude  towards  him  which  brought  much  misery  to  his 
mother.  Nevertheless,  he  repressed  this  resentment  because  he 
could  not  help  feeling  that  his  father  thought  himself  to  be  just 
and  his  upbringing  had  very  early  and  deeply  ingrained  into 
him  the  idea  of  the  injunction—  "  Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother  that  their  days  may  be  long  in  the  land,  etc. "  The  first 
unconscious  attack  occurred  twelve  years  ago.  Investigation 
shows  that  a  few  months  previously  he  had  quarrelled  with  a 
friend  and  they  were  starting  to  fight  when  his  father,  who  was 
ill,  came  into  the  room  to  separate  them.  Without  realizing 
what  he  was  doing  in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  he  struck  his 
father  in  the  face  causing  blood  to  flow.  He  has  never  since 
been  able  to  forget  his  father's  expression  as  he  said  "My  son, 
I  never  thought  you  would  do  a  thing  like  that."  Ever  since 
that  event,  which  was  such  a  psychic  trauma  to  him,  he  has  felt 
that  if  ever  he  meets  with  the  victim  of  his  original  quarrel 
through  whom  he  hit  his  father,  he  will  kill  him  if  possible  and 
"swing  for  him."  "It's  me  or  him."  Two  days  after  this 
incident  his  father  died  of  pneumonia.  For  many  months  the 
patient  suffered  from  great  depression  and  insomnia  and  ever 
since  has  had  a  recurrent  dream  in  which  he  saw  his  father  with 
a  contused  and  bleeding  face.  It  was  a  few  months  after  his 
father's  death  that  he  had  another  quarrel  with  a  friend  and  the 
first  fit  came  on  in  which  he  was  very  violent.  He  says  he  first 
felt  a  great  weakness  come  over  him  and  he  recollected  nothing 
more.  A  few  years  later  another  quarrel  ensued  when  an  ex- 
actly similar  attack  occurred.  His  health  was  now  quite  good 
but  he  always  felt  irritated  against  his  superiors  when  found  any 


36  A  Study  of  Tiro  Epileptoid  Cases  in  Soldiers 

fault  with  but  never  reacted  with  any  show  of  emotion.  He 
enlisted  in  the  army  and  became  a  bandman  attached  to  one  of 
the  regiments.  He  got  on  very  well  until  he  felt  himself  not 
treated  justly  by  his  Bandmaster  and  on  matters  coming  to  a 
head  he  had  three  unconscious  attacks  in  each  of  which  he  showed 
great  violence  and  for  which  he  was  sent  home  here. 

The  patient  was  well  educated  and  readily  told  me  the 
above  history  on  enquiry.  He  was  markedly  egotistical  in  his 
outlook  on  life  and  evinced  a  narrow  superficial  religiosity. 
There  was  evidence  of  tremendous  maternal  fixation  and  it  is 
important  to  note  that  there  hardly  ever  had  been  any  sexual 
desire  and  no  sexual  intercourse  ever  had  taken  place  though 
onanistic  practices  had  occurred  at  times.  We  see  plainly  shown 
here  psychosexual  and  emotional  factors  of  an  abnormal  type 
which  evidently  had  intimate  relationship  with  the  outbreak  of 
his  unconscious  epileptoid  attacks.  The  natural  phase  of  pater- 
nal resentment  because  of  the  strong  maternal  fixation  was 
roused  to  a  maximal  height  by  his  father's  stern  and  cruel  treat- 
ment. But  this  very  severity  emanating  from  one  who  after 
all  was  his  father  and  therefore  a  great  man  to  the  childish  mind, 
combined  with  the  fact  that  his  strict  orthodox  and  narrow  reli- 
gious upbringing  could  only  tend  to  inculcate  a  submissive 
attitude  on  his  part,  made  repression  of  any  emotional  reaction 
a  natural  procedure.  As  time  went  on  the  pent  up  and  repressed 
longing  to  "get  his  own  back"  must  have  been  much  added  to 
seeing  that  his  mother  had  to  share  his  burden.  Is  it  any  wonder 
then  that  at  the  psychological  moment  of  his  quarrel  when  his 
father  was  robbing  him  of  his  lawful  prey  as  it  were,  that  his 
"unconscious"  should  impel  him  to  give  that  blow  which  the 
next  second  was  seen  to  be  so  revolting  to  his  personal  conscious- 
ness? The  recurrent  dream  which  filled  him  with  so  much 
horror  shows  how  conative  the  repressed  material  was  and  one 
does  not  find  it  difficult  to  understand  how,  when  the  old  associa- 
tions were  lighted  up  by  fresh  quarrels,  the  unconscious  should 
take  advantage  of  some  temporary  lack  of  inhibition  to  release 
its  flood  of  surcharged  emotional  resentment.  Yet  even  at  these 
moments  the  personality  was  such  that  the  violence  could  only 
occur  outside  the  vista  of  personal  consciousness  and  hence  the 
unconscious  attacks  described.  Each  opponent  and  lastly  the 
Bandmaster  who  was  his  superior  officer,  doubtless  were  surro- 
gates of  the  father  image.  His  threat  against  the  life  of  his  first 
opponent  shows  how  inadequately  he  still  views  the  past  and 


C.  Stanford  Read  37 


how  abnormally  he  will  probably  react  given  certain  situations. 
His  attacks  will  certainly  recur  when  he  has  to  face  special 
necessities  for  adapatation  but  it  seems  a  case  that  modern 
psychotherapy  should  be  able  to  do  much  for. 

Case  2.  Private  R.  H.  was  admitted  to  "D"  Block  from 
France  labelled  "Minor  Epilepsy"  with  the  following  history — • 
"One  night  lately  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of  somnambulism, 
called  up  some  men  and  said  the  Commanding  Officer  wanted 
them  at  once.  He  came  to  in  a  dug-out  half  a  mile  away  the 
next  morning.  He  had  had  excited  phases  in  which  he  was  very 
violent  without  being  able  to  restrain  himself. " 

On  examining  him  he  was  found  to  be  a  particularly  intelli- 
gent man  of  45  years  of  age  who  had  good  insight  into  his  abnor- 
mal condition  and  who  was  extremely  anxious  to  have  his  case 
understood  with  a  view  to  relief  from  symptoms  which  caused  him 
much  distress  and  brought  him  into  conflict  with  the  law  con- 
tinually. He  gave  the  following  details  of  his  past  life.  He 
came  from  the  North  country  and  was  a  traveller  in  art  goods. 
He  had  been  married  but  they  had  not  lived  together  for  many 
years.  He  was  always  a  spoilt  child  and  was  never  chastised 
in  anyway  but  always  got  what  he  wanted.  If  thwarted  he 
would  break  out  into  violent  fits  of  temper.  At  school  he  was 
very  smart  but  could  do  nothing  in  the  presence  of  the  Inspector. 
From  his  earliest  boyhood  he  kept  to  himself  and  was  a  great 
day-dreamer,  the  content  of  his  dreaming  being  always  con- 
vnected  with  the  imperative  necessity  of  making  money  which 
nevertheless  must  be  given  away  when  obtained.  No  history  of 
any  physical  illness  at  any  time.  The  first  major  indication  of 
his  abnormal  mentality  occurred  when  he  was  about  16  years  of 
age.  He  recollects  finding  himself  being  shaken  by  a  policeman 
in  the  main  street  of  his  town  about  a  mile  from  his  home.  It 
was  in  the  early  morning  and  he  had  only  a  shirt  and  trousers  on 
but  no  boots  or  socks.  At  nineteen  years  of  age  he  started 
studies  to  enter  the  Church  of  England  but  his  parents  were 
Catholic  and  his  mother  being  so  upset  at  his  desire  he  gave  up 
the  idea;  he  describes  this  as  the  greatest  disappointment  of  his 
life.  He  soon  felt  a  terrible  temper  developing.  At  the  age  of 
twenty  he  went  to  work  for  a  time  at  a  mill  where  one  of  the  men 
used  to  find  delight  in  bullying  him  and  he  can  only  recollect, 
after  a  special  torment  and  warning  his  persecutor,  six  or  seven 
people  pulling  him  off  the  man,  whereupon  a  fit  ensued  and  he 
was  taken  home.  Matters  went  fairly  well  with  him  for  some 


38  A  Study  of  Two  Epileptoid  Cases  in  Soldiers 

time  with  the  exception  of  periodical  outbursts  of  temper  from 
comparatively  trivial  happenings.  These  he  says  were  quite 
uncontrollable  and  of  them  subsequently  he  had  only  a  hazy 
recollection.  About  the  age  of  twenty-three  he  began  to  take 
up  his  occupation  of  travelling  auctioneer  in  art  goods.  He  felt, 
that  he  must  travel  and  get  continually  into  fresh  surroundings 
and  ever  since  he  has  not  stayed  in  his  own  town  for  three  con- 
secutive days.  He  was  very  successful  in  his  business,  making 
anything  from  £6  to  £10  per  week.  His  parents  died  about 
fifteen  years  ago  and  his  father's  death  greatly  affected  him;  acute 
depression  and  insomnia  supervening  and  lasting  nearly  twelve 
months.  Thirteen  years  ago  he  married  and  a  child  was  born 
but  the  result  was  never  happy  and  he  soon  left  her.  Shortly 
afterwards  an  event  occurred  which  has  had  a  marked  effect  on 
his  abnormal  mentality.  He  says  that  he  found  a  man  in  very- 
poor  circumstances,  financed  him  and  took  him  into  partnership 
but  later  finding  out  that  he  was  a  "bad  lot,"  the  partnership 
was  dissolved  but  in  the  settlement  the  patient  was  accused  of 
embezzlement  and  though  he  strongly  protested  his  innocence, 
he  was  arrested  and  sentenced  to  three  months  with  hard  labour. 
This  event  seems  to  have  caused  intense  resentment  against  the 
world  and  since  then  he  has  kept  more  to  himself  than  ever.  It 
seems  that  he  has  endeavoured  to  "get  his  own  back"  later  in  a 
curiously  distorted  way.  He  would  feel  impelled  to  take  a  train 
journey  and  visit  some  city  a  hundred  or  two  miles  away  and 
calling  at  some  house  would  book  a  bogus  order.  He  would  be 
in  possession  of  a  fair  amount  of  money  at  the  time  but  he  would 
insist  on  the  person  with  whom  he  was  doing  business  paying 
him  a  deposit  on  account.  This  deposit  was  always  extremely 
small  and  never  exceeded  three  shillings.  On  his  return  home 
his  recollection  of  all  that  had  occurred  would  be  very  hazy  and 
he  had  an  idea  that  he  had  done  wrong  but  nevertheless  would 
feel  some  relief  and  gratification.  The  result  was  always  the 
same.  He  would  be  arrested  and  sentenced  to  a  term  of  im- 
prisonment varying  from  one  to  six  months.  He  came  into  con- 
flict with  the  law  once  in  another  way.  He  was  walking  down 
the  main  street  of  a  large  city  once  when  he  suddenly  seemed  to 
hear  something  telling  him  to  break  a  window.  On  looking 
around  he  saw  no  one  who  could  have  spoken  to  him.  He  felt 
very  depressed  and  his  memory  then  left  him  but  he  awoke  from 
his  stupor  a  moment  later,  heard  the  sound  of  falling  glass  and 
found  himself  being  very  violent  to  a  policeman  who  was  en- 


C.  Stanford  Read  39 


deavouring  to  arrest  him.  As  he  came  more  to  himself,  he 
grasped  the  situation,  apologized  and  went  quietly  to  the  police 
station  where  he  received  a  sentence  of  a  month's  imprisonment. 
For  over  twenty  years  he  has  had  at  times  vivid  hallucinations 
which  usually  foretold  some  event.  An  hallucinatory  episode  is 
related  which  is  of  great  psychological  interest.  He  had  been 
keeping  company  with  some  girl  for  some  years  and  one  day 
while  sitting  at  home  by  himself  the  door  appeared  to  open  and 
a  man  came  in  (whom  he  knew  was  fond  of  this  particular  girl), 
sat  down  and  suggested  a  race.  The  girl  then  appeared  in  the 
distance  and  he  saw  a  tree  with  one  red  rose  on  it.  He  presumed 
that  the  race  was  for  this  flower.  He  saw  himself  racing  and  he 
beat  his  opponent  by  a  few  yards  and  clipped  the  rose  off.  Both 
of  them  then  walked  back  to  the  girl  who  smiled  but  just  as  he 
handed  the  rose  to  her,  every  petal  dropped  off!  The  meaning 
of  this  vision  seemed  clear  to  him.  He  had  beaten  the  other 
man  who  was  vexed  and  pointed  to  the  petals  lying  on  the  ground, 
saying,  "There!  You  only  had  it  for  a  time."  The  meaning 
was  that  he  wouldn't  keep  the  girl  long  and  he  didn't,  for  a 
week  or  two  afterwards  they  parted  for  good  though  there  was 
no  quarrel. 

One  may  conjecture  that  such  a  psychopath  as  our  patient 
would  not  adapt  himself  to  active  service  conditions  well  and 
so  it  proved.  Since  enlistment  amnesic  wandering  attacks  and 
uncontrollable  fits  of  violence  have  been  very  frequent  and  he 
could  not  help  but  resent  anyone  forcing  his  company  on  him. 
He  recollects  going  to  bed  one  night  and  finding  himself  the 
following  morning  about  a  mile  from  his  billet.  At  another 
time  he  went  to  his  Medical  Officer  who  said  there  was  something 
wrong  with  his  heart  and  he  was  sent  to  a  hospital  at  Boulogne. 
When  convalescent  he  took  a  walk  and  wandered  down  by  the 
quay.  He  had  some  money  with  him  and  he  remembers  buying 
some  fruit  and  giving  it  to  some  wounded  who  were  being  placed 
on  board  a  ship.  After  that  there  was  a  blank  and  when  he 
came  to  himself  he  was  in  London  but  how  long  he  had  been 
there  he  didn't  know.  How  he  got  on  the  boat  is  a  mystery  to 
him.  He  at  once  gave  himself  up  to  the  police,  was  taken  back 
to  France  and  given  twenty -eight  days  F.  P.  No.  1.  These 
fugues  recurred  and  he  was  therefore  sent  to  Netley.  On  arrival 
he  was  transferred  to  the  Neurological  Section  where  after  a 
time  he  appeared  before  a  Medical  Board  and  was  discharged 
from  the  service. 


40  A  Study  of  Two  Epileptoid  Cases  in  Soldiers 

While  an  inmate  his  main  symptom  was  that  of  periodic 
feelings  of  general  resentment  and  if  occasion  offered  itself  he 
knew  he  would  become  violent.  Once  he  entered  the  hospital 
grounds  from  leave  a  little  late,  and  in  a  discussion  with  the  police 
one  got  hold  of  him,  whereupon  great  violence  at  once  manifested 
itself  and  he  quickly  floored  six  of  them.  There  was  some  sub- " 
sequent  confusion,  regret  for  what  he  had  done  but  at  the  same 
time  a  great  feeling  of  relief.  He  has  returned  to  civil  life  where 
it  is  certain  that  his  abnormal  proclivities  will  soon  bring  him 
into  trouble  again. 

The  patient  told  his  story  well  and  in  great  detail.  He 
'complained  greatly  and  with  justification,  of  the  frequent  pun- 
ishment he  had  undergone  and  of  being  misunderstood.  He 
describes  his  time  in  France  as  being  one  of  physical  and  mental 
agony.  He  is  of  an  egotistical  type  and  is  fond  of  boasting  of 
his  strength,  his  wage  earning  capacity  and  of  the  many  things 
he  can  do  better  than  his  fellow  men.  He  is  not  shallowly  reli- 
gious for  since  his  great  disappointment  of  giving  up  his  theo- 
logical studies,  all  interest  in  such  matters  have  disappeared. 
Had  not  his  history  been  largely  confirmed  by  others  I  should 
have  been  inclined  to  doubt  him  because  of  his  reiteration  of  his 
being  so  honest  in  his  statements,  saying  he  can  produce  proof 
and  so  often  using  the  phrase  "on  my  honour."  There  was  no_ 
special  abnormal  sexual  traits.  His  wife,  he  states,  gave  him 
syphilis  which  has  tended  subsequently  to  keep  him  from  women. 
He  is  a  heavy  cigarette  smoker,  consuming  as  many  as  fifty  a  day. 
Alcohol  he  knows  has  a  very  bad  effect  on  him  and  so  for  many 
years  he  has  been  very  moderate  in  its  consumption.  In  his 
leisure  he  mostly  reads  but  can  play  the  piano  and  violincello. 
He  does  not  dream  much  and  when  he  does  no  anxiety  is  dis- 
played in  them.  The  only  company  he  ever  has  is  that  of  a  dog, 
of  which  animal  he  is  very  fond.  Cats  he  hates  and  when  young 
he  was  very  cruel  to  them  and  used  to  torture  them  terribly. 
At  this  time  his  hates  and  cruelties  were  much  in  evidence. 
One  younger  sister  was  a  special  victim  and  once  in  a  rage  he 
tried  to  poke  her  eyes  out. 

While  in  the  hospital  he  felt  fairly  well  on  the  whole  but 
always  slept  badly  and  on  rising  in  the  morning  he  would  feel 
dizzy  for  a  time.  During  conversation  he  would  now  and  again 
lose  the  thread  of  his  thought  content  and  his  mind  would  be  a 
blank  for  a  moment.  Headaches  occur  frequently,  especially 
after  any  excitement.  From  his  relations  most  of  his  history 


C.  Stanford  Read  41 


was  confirmed.  Three  cousins  suffered  from  epileptic  fits  and 
an  aunt  also;  an  uncle  died  in  an  asylum;  his  mother  was  "nerv- 
ous" and  his  father  had  "fainting  attacks." 

This  case  shows  various  pathological  characteristics  and  by 
no  means  demonstrates  uncomplicated  epilepsy.  The  anamnesis 
is  extremely  interesting  and  shows  the  importance  of  obtaining 
a  full  psychic  history  without  which  no  possible  insight  can  be 
gained  into  the  mechanisms  involved  in  the  production  of  the 
abnormal  state.  The  patient  shows  much  that  may  fall  in  with 
the  epileptic  "make  up."  From  his  earliest  life  he  was  pre- 
ponderatingly  self-centred,  his  interests  became  more  and  more 
egotistical  and  he  found  himself  able  to  adapt  less  and  less  to  his 
social  environment.  When  a  child,  thwarted  wishes  brought 
about  tantrums  and  violent  outbreaks  of  temper  which,  in  later 
years,  from  trivial  stress  became  uncontrollable  violence  while  in 
a  more  or  less  confused  state.  Day  dreaming  became  habitual, 
while  the  unconscious  desire  to  get  away  from  reality  showed 
itself  in  other  ways.  The  nomadic  life  was  doubtless  instigated 
in  order  to  obtain  continual  stimulation  for  novelty  and  indicates 
that  some  interest  \vas  to  some  extent  objectively  sought.  His 
breakdown  following  his  father's  death  shows  that  the  "family 
ro.uance"  as  White  terms  it,  was  responsible  for  some  part  of  his 
abnormality  but  there  was  unfortunately  no  opportunity  of 
analysing  this  point.  His  conviction  and  imprisonment  on  the 
first  occasion  brought  a  storm  of  added  resentment  against  the 
world  which  accentuated  his  psychopathic  state.  His  states  of 
violence  were,  in  all  probability,  inadequate  reactions  to  intoler- 
able situations  and  energized  largely  by  complexes  repressed  in 
early  life,  while  his  fugues  were  flights  from  reality,  guided,  may 
be,  by  wishes  we  know  not  of.  It  should  be  noticed  that  he 
evinced  marked  sadistic  traits  in  early  life,  so  that  his  liability 
to  violence  is  the  less  to  be  wondered  at.  If  one  accepts  the 
theory  that  in  such  cases  there  is  regression  to  a  primitive 
mentality  comparable  to  that  of  infancy,  one  might  view  his 
hallucinatory  symptoms  as  a  hark  back  to  the  period  of  magical- 
hallucinatory  omnipotence  which  is  regarded  as  the  stage  of  first 
compromise  towards  reality  after  birth.  With  his  bad  heredity 
and  at  his  age  his  case  does  not  look  hopeful  from  a  therapeutic 
point  of  view  but  some  amelioration  at  any  rate  should  ensue 
from  a  thorough  analysis  and  gradually  abreacting  and  subli- 
mating energies  now  only  seen  in  a  distorted  form. 


THE  ILLUSION  OF  LEVITATION 

Part  One.     A  General  Presentation 
Lydiard  H.  Horton 

Introduction 

The  following  report  to  Dr.  Prince  is  largely  self-explanatory.  It 
was  written  in  every  way  as  the  text  implies,  and  without  any  settled  idea 
of  publication.  It  was  penned  at  one  sitting,  and  was  read  in  manuscript 
by  Dr.  Prince  to  his  associates  in  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology. 
He  then  suggested  printing  the  letter  as  it  stood  in  its  present  form,  barring 
a  few  omissions  which  he,  in  his  editorial  capacity,  thought  advisable. 
Accordingly  a  feiv  unessential  points  were  omitted,  and  the  paper  made 
up  as  here  seen. 

The  desire  for  a  more  complete  confirmation  of  the  guesses  led  to  a 
postponement  of  publication  at  the  writer's  request.  Since  then  further 
evidence  has  come  to  hand  sufficient  to  warrant  publication.  The  eviden- 
tial matter,  such  as  it  is,  will  be  presented  in  later  instalments. 

It  will  be  realized  by  students  of  abnormal  psychology  that  the  illusion 
of  levitation  plays  a  considerable  part  in  the  case  histories  of  mystics  and 
of  certain  classes  of  the  insane.  On  ike  other  hand,  states  of  so-called 
ecstasy  have  in  many  instances  a  definite  biological,  and  even  therapeutic 
value.  A  proper  distinction  between  these  two  extremes  should  be  made 
available  to  the  psychiatrist. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY,  NEW  YORK  CITY, 

April  17,  1912. 

My  Dear  Doctor  Prince: 

Some  months  ago  in  a  conversation  on  the  subject  of  dreams 
I  told  you  that  I  had  worked  out  what  seemed  to  me  a  plausible 
and  well-nigh  scientific  explanation  of  the  well  known  Flying 
Dream.  I  promised  at  that  time  to  send  you  an  account  of  the 
experiments  which  gave  me  the  clues  to  this  phenomenon.  But 
the  difficulty  of  finding  time  to  present  the  matter  in  a  thorough- 
ly scientific  way  has  loomed  so  large  that  I  have  been  turned 
away  from  the  task  time  and  time  again,  more  or  less  intimidated 
at  the  sight  of  the  many  chances  for  controversy  that  opened  up. 

42 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  43 


Now,  however,  rather  than  to  have  my  intended  contribu- 
tion nullified  by  default,  I  have  decided  to  sit  down  and  write 
out  in  frankness  and  naivete  whatever  shall  come  to  the  point  of 
my  pen. 

In  this  first  statement  I  renounce  any  intention  of  fortifying 
myself  against  misunderstanding  or  protecting  myself  from  the 
thousand  missiles  of  thought  or  half-thought  which  might  be 
hurled  at  my  thesis  by  an  audience  of  skeptics  in  psychology. 
For  I  am  writing  to  you;  and  I  am  not  afraid  of,  but  should 
rather  welcome  the  sort  of  criticisms  from  you  that  I  have  al- 
ready been  privileged  to  obtain  and  which  have  served  me  in 
such  good  stead  for  several  years. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  EXPERIMENTS 

To  begin  with,  I  must  tell  you  that  the  experiments  which 
yielded  what  I  call  my  clues  to  the  Flying  Dream  were  not  con- 
ducted with  any  idea  of  explaining  or  reproducing  the  illusion  of 
levitation;  this  being,  of  course,  the  fundamental  fact  in  the  dream 
experience.  My  experiments  wrere  indeed  begun  and  virtually 
completed  before  I  had  any  thought  of  using  the  data,  which 
they  afforded,  as  a  means  of  explaining  the  illusions  of  levitation. 

The  experiments  were  begun  in  1907,  prosecuted  in  1908  and 
1909-10,  and  it  was  not  until  1910  (September)  that  it  occurred 
to  me  to  draw  any  conclusions  from  them  as  to  the  Flying  Dream. 
In  the  meantime,  however,  in  1909  and  1910,  I  had  consulted 
you  as  to  the  experiments  themselves,  but  without  any  reference 
to  the  dream. 

It  is  now  in  order  to  say  a  few  words  descriptive  of  the  ex- 
periments and  then  to  call  your  attention  to  the  results  which 
bear  upon  the  illusion  of  levitation. 

OBSERVATIONS  OF  NATURAL  SLEEP 

Mere  curiosity  as  to  the  phenomena  underlying  Sleep  was 
my  motive  for  beginning  these  experiments.  Having  read  a 
great  deal  about  "le  sommeil  provoque"  and  finding  little  that 
seemed  definite,  I  resolved  to  observe  sleep  as  best  I  could  my- 
self and  to  cut  loose  not  only  from  the  literature  of  the  subject, 
but  also  from  all  directions  and  rules  regarding  the  production 
of  artificial  sleep  or  of  any  sort  of  hypnotic  state. 

To  be  sure  I  could  not  cut  loose  entirely  from  what  I  neces- 
sarily remembered  of  the  way  sleep  is  induced.  I  did  not,  for 
example,  try  to  get  my  subject  to  sleep  while  standing  (!)  nor 


44  The  Illusion  of  Levitation 

did  I  fail  to  recognize  that  even  a  reclining  subject  will  not 
readily  go  to  sleep  unless  his  thoughts  are  in  some  way  directed 
into  the  line  of  rest. 

It  seemed  not  unreasonable  to  assume  that  all  subjects 
should  be  required  to  relax  their  muscles  and  to  make  up  their 
minds  to  give  over  voluntary  effort.  In  these  two  features  of 
rest  or  sleep  I  could  not  very  well  have  departed  from  the  familiar 
procedures  of  sleep -induct  ion — as  illustrated  in  the  nursery  and 
in  the  sick-room. 

But  when  it  comes  to  the  details,  I  may  say  that  I  broke 
every  rule  I  could  think  of  for  "artificial"  sleep.  I  did  not,  of 
course,  deliberately  prod  my  subjects  or  present  exciting  ideas. 
But  I  made  no  attempt  to  fatigue  their  gaze;  I  did  not  tell  them 
to  go  to  sleep  nor  impress  them  with  any  desire  on  my  part  to  have 
them  sleep  or  even  close  their  eyes.  The  only  thing  I  did  insist 
upon  was  that  the  period  of  the  experiment,  the  pause  in  the 
day's  activity,  was  to  be  regarded  by  them  as  devoted  or  con- 
secrated to  leisure.  This  idea  of  leisure,  of  freedom  from  the 
necessity  for  action,  I  emphasized  not  by  repetition  or  forcible 
suggestions,  but  by  quiet  argument  and  exposition,  carried  on 
in  a  conversational  tone. 

NOT  HYPNOSIS  BUT  "SOMNOSIS" 

It  may  be  objected  that  my  procedure  too  nearly  resembled 
hypnotic  suggestion  to  have  afforded  any  light  on  normal  sleep. 
But  the  precautions  I  Jook,  the  verbal  caution  I  observed  and 
the  naturalness  of  the  whole  setting  led  me  to  believe  that  I  was 
producing  NORMAL  SLEEP  UNDER  ESSENTIALLY  NORMAL  CONDI- 
TIONS. 

In  only  two  cases  did  I  observe  anything  that  looked  to  me 
like  hypnosis  and  in  these  cases  the  subjects  were  promptly 
made  to  "come  out  of  it;"  fascination  would  describe  this  con- 
dition, and  I  warned  subjects  against  it. 

Otherwise  the  rest-states  that  I  obtained  were  such  as  one 
might  observe  any  day,  I  believe,  on  the  deck  of  an  ocean  steam- 
er, where  in  fine  weather  a  siesta  is  being  enjoyed  by  care-free 
individuals  who  have  been  made  as  comfortable  as  their  particu- 
lar degree  of  egoism  and  the  aid  of  their  servitors  would  allow. 

Under  just  such  mental  conditions  as  are  implied  by  the 
foregoing  analogous  instance,  did  I  produce  the  rest-states, 
whose  phenomena  I  have  from  time  to  time  reported  to  you. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  45 


Without  going  into  all  the  details,  I  may  say  that  the  striking 
feature  of  this  sort  of  induced  siesta  was  the  thoroughness  of 
.  the  rest  and  the  ready  yielding  of  the  subject  to  my  persuasions. 
For  in  70  experiments  on  35  subjects,  only  three  subjects  and 
five  experiments  indicated  a  failure  to  surpass  the  rest  obtained 
in  ordinary  sleep — meaning  sleep  obtained  under  conditions 
where  there  is  no  prearranged  experiment. 

These  non-hypnotic  results  I  attribute  to  the  fact  that  I 
was  successful  in  eliminating  my  own  personality  as  a  possible 
interference  and  that  at  the  same  time  I  left  to  the  subject  the 
most  complete  control  over  his  own  thoughts  and  over  his  critical 
judgment.  In  other  words,  I  avoided  suggestion  in  the  technical 
sense  and,  instead  used  the  art  of  suggestion  in  Francis  Bacon's 
meaning  of  the  word;  as  a  mere  "calling  to  mind"  of  restful  topics. 

To  put  this  briefly,  "Freedom  of  the  patients'  will"  was 
my  watchword.  Thus  the  complex  relations  implied  by  hypnot- 
ic "rapport"  and  the  " mono-ideism "  of  Braid  and  the  supposed 
dependence  of  subject  upon  operator  were  eliminated  quite  as 
much  from  these  experiments  as  they  ever  can  be,  say,  from 
drawing-room  conversation. 

It  is  no  mere  idealization  of  the  past  that  makes  me  say 
this,  but  a  genuine  memory  of  having  from  the  beginning  of 
these  experiments  sought  to  guard  against  what  is  technically 
called  "suggestion;"  thus  avoiding  artifacts. 

The  results  were  gratifying  to  me  in  that  I  was  enabled  for 
the  first  time  to  get  an  answer  to  my  question  as  to  what  might 

be    THE    NORMAL    COURSE    OF    THE    REST    FUNCTION. 

STRIKING  FEATURES  OF  PRE-SLEEPING   PERIOD 

Most  surprising  to  me  was  the  fact  that  many  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  "le  sommeil  provoque,"  which  are  frequently  spoken  of 
as  produced  by  "suggestion"  are  evidently  part  and  parcel  of 
the  relaxation  which  goes  with  sleep. 

I  mention  in  particular  a  sense  of  weight,  often  followed  by 
a  sense  of  lightness;  and  more  especially  an  invasion  of  warmth 
which  affects  the  skin  as  if  the  body  were  felt  to  blush,  so  positive 
is  the  phenomenon.  Repeatedly  have  I  observed  this  even 
when  no  hint  or  even  expectation  of  the  phenomenon  was  present 
in  my  own  thought  or  speech.  [Subjects'  reports  during  siesta 
were  sufficiently  definite  to  make  anything  like  instrumental 
blood-volume  records  quite  supererogatory.] 


The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


Having  almost  a  "phobia"  for  artifacts,  and  a  rooted 
objection  to  the  fatuous  practices  of  many  "  suggestionists "  I 
tested  this  matter  over  and  over  again.  I  found  that  there  was 
a  regulated  orderly  procession  of  bodily  events  in  nearly  every 
case  where  a  normal  person  lies  down  and  makes  up  his  mind 
that  he  will  remit  voluntary  effort.  This  indeed  is  the  attitude 
of  almost  anyone  when  going  to  bed,  as  Boris  Sidis  has  pointed 
out  in  his  Experimental  Study  of  Sleep. 

A  REGULAR  ORDER  OF  PHENOMENA 

Ordinarily,  the  phenomena  of  the  pre-dormitium  are  not 
intensively  observed,  as  they  were  by  me,  and  I  am  sensible  of 
the  fact  that  you  are  one  of  the  few  psychologists  to  whom  the 
value  of  such  observations  has  stood  out  clearly.  It  is,  there- 
fore, unnecessary  for  me  to  expatiate  on  the  distinctiveness  of 
'the  state  of  pre-dormitium. 


ILLUSION  OF  LEVITATION  IN  DREAM  FORM 

CAUSED  BY  VASOMOTOR  DILATATION  OF  SKIN  VESSELS 

Note  Scenes:  Dreamer  with  insufficient  clothing  pursues  Smith,  warmly  clad  cMege  friend, 
meanwhile  treading  cold  tiles.  Presently,  losing  sight  of  Smith,  attains  unexpected  facility  in  soaring 
motion,  rising  from  tiling  up  steps  without  touching,  till  he  travels  through  upper  hallway  and  tri- 
umphantly levitates  past  coat  room,  waving  hand  airily  at  persons  engaged  in  " checking"  furs. 

The  order  of  events  to  which  I  must  now  more  completely 
refer  seems  to  be  the  following: 

1st,  The  relaxation  of  the  voluntary  muscles,  allowing  the 
bodily  posture  to  adjust  itself  to  the  supporting  couch  or  chair. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  47 


2nd,  A  decrease  of  muscle-tonus  to  a  point  below  the  ordi- 
nary postural  tonus,  in  which  the  hand  or  the  arm  becomes 
almost  flaccid  and  in  which  there  is  NO  TENDENCY  TO  MAINTAIN 
POSTURE  as  there  certainly  is  in  stage  1. 

3rd,  A  still  greater  relaxation  in  which  the  feeling  of  self- 
activity  diminishes  and  in  which  the  subject,  altho'  fully  awake, 
is  surprised  and  pleased  that  he  does  not  feel  desirous  of  moving 
or  acting.  This  is  the  true  passive  state  of  the  muscles  and  some 
subjects  describe  themselves  as  "limp  as  a  rag;"  "feeling  like 
boiled  maccaroni, "  or  like  "a  quart  of  molasses  poured  on  a  slab 
of  marble.  "l 

4th,  Beyond  this  stage  comes  the  change  of  the  breathing, 
although  sometimes  this  cuts  into  the  stage  of  medium  relaxation 
(2nd). 

This  breathing  is  simply  respiratory -center  breathing,  ini- 
tiated usually  by  an  "asphyxic  reflex"  (e.  g.  one  subject  says 
"I  am  so  lazy  I  don't  want  to  breathe")  after  which  the  breath- 
ing often  shows  the  perfect  rhythm  of  true  vagus  regulation. 
The  pneumographic  tracings  plainly  show  the  temporary  sus- 
pension and  then  increase  in  regularity  of  breathing.2 

I  may  be  wrong  in  saying  that  I  noted  the  breathing  to  be 
not  only  slower,  but  in  some  cases  deeper.  At  any  rate,  the 
phase  of  expiration  is  sharpened  and  the  subject  reports  that  he 
felt  more  free,  in  his  lung  action.  "My  chest  just  has  to  go  up 
and  down!"  This  feature  is  interestingly  illustrated  by  the 
effect  on  speech,  when  it  is  attempted.  There  is  a  tendency  for 
a  slight  gasping  as  if  the  breath  disregarded  the  checks  imposed 
upon  it  by  vocalization.  When  the  person's  eyes  close  and 
there  is  no  attempt  at  expression,  this  does  not  show  itself,  of 
course.  But  even  then  there  is  apt  to  be  a  "sigh  of  relief"  quality 
in  the  one,  twro  or  three  breaths  which  mark  the  "retiring  point" 
as  it  were  of  psychic  influence  over  respiration. 

(In  my  opinion  the  systems  of  the  orientals  for  trance  induc- 
tion, bear  the  earmarks  of  this  sort  of  experiment.  Further, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  deep  breathing  helps  to  initiate  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  diaphragm  and  of  costal  movements  from  the 
mental  influences.) 

5th,  The  last  point  is  the  vaso-motor  dilatation,  affecting 
the  surface  of  the  body.  This  is  sometimes  very  marked  and  I 

JA  recent  version  is  "emulating  the  dish  rag." 

2 Most  of  the  observations,  however,  were  conducted  wiihoul  apparatus  as  only  highly 
trainee!  subjects  are  able  to  feel  natural  or  "at  ease"  when  harnessed  up  to  recording 
mechanisms. 


48  The  Illusion  of  Levitation 

\ 

have  in  my  own  case,  known  it  to  happen  with  such  rapidity 
as  not  only  to  give  me  a  tingle  all  over  the  body  (as  after  a  shower 
bath)  but  to  bring  on  a  sense  of  lightness  in  the  head  and  an 
illusion  of  falling,  quite  comparable  to  that  of  the  falling  dream.3 
Now  having  given  the  principal  features  in  the  program  of 
bodily  events  during  relaxation,  let  me  assure  you  again  that  I 
have  excluded  in  almost  every  case  any  possibility  of  artifact. 
I  regard  these  manifestations  as  the  NORMAL  PHENOMENA  OF  THE 
REST  FUNCTION  which  in  turn  I  regard  as  an  innate  tendency  of 
the  nervous  system  to  reduce  its  tonus  under  the  conditions  of 
voluntary  repose.  It  is  as  if  the  fundamental  system  and  the 
medullary  centres  entered  into  a  conspiracy  to  throw  off  the 
yoke  of  the  cortical  centres. 

MUSCLE-SENSE  AND  KINESTHETIC  REPOSE 

The  greatest  changes  in  self-feeling  observed  by  my  subjects 
were  directly  referable  to  altered  Kinesthetic  sensations,  or  rather 
to  a  remission  of  them;  and  these  changes  I  can  closely  relate 
to  the  Kinesthetic  images  which  I  employed  as  a  means  of  pre- 
paring the  mind  for  the  state  of  balance  and  equipoise  which 
was  so  desirable  and  so  frequently  realized  in  these  experiments. 
So  far  as  its  being  "suggestion"  is  concerned,  it  was  of  the  type 
afforded  by  absorption  in  works  of  architecture  or  sculpture. 

For  instance,  a  quiet  observation  of  the  lines  in  the  Statue 
of  the  Winged  Victory — or  similar  works  of  art — can  produce 
states  of  attention  and  bodily  easement  which  closely  resemble 
the  mental  attitude  required  in  my  experiments. 

The  interest  of  the  matter  (and  my  reason  for  dwelling  on 
it)  is  that  the  Kinesthetic  repose  and  the  muscular  relaxation 
attained  by  my  subjects  seemed  to  be  bound  up  with  the  physical 
phenomena  of  sleep-at-its-best.  The  novelty  lies  in  the  fact 
that  these  phenomena,  as  detailed  above,  were  all  PRODUCIBLE 
BY  MEANS  NOT  HYPNOTIC  nor  commonly  classified  under  "sug- 
gestion. "  The  curiosity  of  the  matter  lies  in  the  fact  that  most 
of  the  subjects  demonstrated  the  phenomena  which  are  charac- 
teristic of  sleep  on  the  physical  side  before  they  lost  conscious- 
ness— barring  of  course  the  closing  of  the  eyelids. 

At  once  you  will  want  to  know  if  this  was  not  merely  a  case 

sln  conversation  with  Dr.  M.  Allen  Starr,  professor  of  Neurology  at  Columbia  University, 
I  submitted  a  vaso-motor  theory  of  these  dreams;  and  he  was  free  to  say  that  it  presented  nothing 
inconsistent  with  our  knowledge  of  vaso-motor  phenomena. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton 


of  "hypnoidization"  or  if  the  subjects  were  not  in  a  state  of 
"abstraction."  My  answer  is  that  three  out  of  thirty  subjects 
showed  abstraction  to  a  slight  degree,  but  that  only  one  showed 
the  regular  hypnoidal  condition  as  described  by  Sidis. 

RELAXATION  WITHOUT  DISINTEGRATING  CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  reason  for  this  (I  think)  is  that  I  tried  to  keep  my  sub- 
jects' thought  in  an  orderly  self-conscious  state  as  long  as  possi- 
ble, and  that  I  acquired  the  knack  of  holding  their  attention  stable 
and  unified.  This  came  by  long  practice  not  only  on  others,  but 
on  myself.  For  I  have  personally  experienced  all  the  "somno- 
tic"  (so  to  say)  phenomena  that  were  ever  reported  to  me  by  my 
subjects.  And  they  have  usually  come  to  me  as  surprises.  To 
put  the  thing  in  a  nut  shell:  there  is  a  certain  state  of  the  atten- 
tion which  is  neither  fascination  nor  reverie,  but  is  in-between 
and  which  is  so  perfectly  neutral  as  regards  voluntary  effort  that 
the  automatisms  of  the  body  become  free  to  assert  themselves — 
and  do. 

For  lack  of  a  better  term  [and  to  avoid  the  now  confusing 
name  Twilight  State],  I  have  called  this  intermediate  neutral 
ground  of  attention,  the  "Mid-State."  And  I  have  studied 
with  more  detail  than  I  can  bore  you  withal  now  the  type  of 
ideas  and  the  modulations  of  discourse  which  lead  the  passive 
subject  into  this  Mid-State  and  enable  one  to  take  with  him 
all  the  valued  privileges  of  consciousness  and  self -perception, 
while  benefiting  by  complete  physical  repose.4 

The  nearest  approach  to  a  description  of  this  region  you  will 
find  in  Ethel  D.  Puffer's  chapter  on  the  "Esthetic  Repose." 
And  yet  the  exact  quality  of  the  state  I  have  met  with  in  my 
subjects,  which  I  call  "Kinesthetic  Repose"  is  not. actually 
covered  by  Miss  Puffer's  excellent  presentation.  But  as  you 
might  expect,  there  is  a  striking  similarity  between  the  pheno- 
mena of  the  "Esthetic  Repose "  and  of  the  " Kinesthetic  Repose. " 
You  will  at  once,  on  comparison,  realize  that  both  are  breeding 
grounds  for  the  illusions  of  levitation  that  I  started  to  speak  of. 

Now  here  is  where  I  come  to  the  point. 

EXPERIMENTAL  ILLUSIONS  OF  LEVITATION 

Out  of  the  thirty  subjects  who  relaxed  completely  and  of 

4  A  re-reading  of  current  physiological  works  on  Sleep  would  be  required  to  pick  out  the  scat- 
tered statements  that  hint  at  what  I  am  calling  to  notice:  the  possibility  of  Body-Sleep  without 
Mind-Sleep.  But  see  "Psychology  of  Beauty"  by  E.  D.  Puffer. 


50  The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


the  twenty  or  so  who  retained  consciousness  after  they  had  com- 
pletely relaxed,  eight  of  them  reported  illusions  of  levitation. 

One  of  them  jumped  out  of  the  chair  and  was  afraid  to  con- 
tinue the  experiment;  so  realistic  was  his  apperception  of  a 
soaring  motion. 

Another,  this  time  a  woman,  gripped  the  chair  in  the  momen- 
tary belief  that  she  was  floating  away;  two  others  reported  that 
they  felt  "caught  up"  by  a  wave  but  that  their  reason  reassured 
them  at  the  time. 

One  other  enjoyed  the  sensation  so  much  that  he  took  it  as 
a  matter  of  course  and  supposed  it  was  part  of  the  "treatment. " 
One  other  said  that  if  his  head  had  been  as  light  as  his  body  he 
would  surely  have  floated  away.  He  reported  himself  "just 
floating  away,"  the  sensation  being  overwhelmingly  real. 

Now  these  "testimonials"  were  not  solicited  and  were  spon- 
taneous expressions  due  to  interest  in  the  peculiar  sensation  and 
the  illusion  it  led  to.  No  suspicion  of  "suggestion"  can  attach 
to  these  six  cases.  But  in  the  other  two  cases,  I  did  perhaps 
make  a  half -suggest  ion.  On  one  occasion,  influenced  by  my 
own  experiences  with  "levitation,"  I  started  in  a  general  way  to 
describe,  what  it  was  like,  whereupon  my  subject  interposed: 
"  But  it  has  come  already. "  At  the  other  time  the  subject  simply 
answered  my  leading  question  with:  "I  felt  light  as  a  feather!" 

In  addition  to  these  eight  cases  of  a  positive  nature,  there 
were  other  cases  in  which  I  could  tell  from  the  rather  vague 
reports  of  the  subjects  that  they  experienced  similar  sensations. 
They  failed  to  attribute  to  them  any  special  meaning  or  imagin- 
ary setting.  What  they  felt  was  a  sensation  of  lightness  and  of 
ease;  and  I  believe  that  this  is  essentially  the  genesis  of  the 
illusion.  But  its  great  accentuation  in  the  extreme  cases  must 
come  from  the  agreeable  warmth  and  diffusion  of  sensation 
which  accompanies  the  vaso-motor  relaxation.  (Let  it  be 
remembered  here  that  many  "subjective"  sensations  are  on  this 
point  corroborated  by  plethysmographic  studies.  Cf.  Howell's.) 

GUESSES  AT  THE   PHYSICAL   EXPLANATION 

Having  experienced  all  these  phenomena  repeatedly,  and 
having  before  the  mind's  eye  a  complete  series  of  cases  illustra- 
tive of  all  the  gradations,  beginning  with  mere  lightness  in  the 
third  stage  of  relaxation,  and  passing  insensibly  into  the  full 
blown  Flying  Dream,  perhaps  I  may  throw  scientific  caution 
momentarily  to  one  side  and  state  my  opinion,  which  is  also  my 
experience,  and  in  any  case  rest  on  experimental  facts. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  51 


The  genesis  of  the  illusion  of  levitation  does  not  come  from 
the  diminution  of  tactile  sensations.  Whether  due  entirely  to 
an  inhibition  in  the  course  of  the  pressure  sense  tracts  (deep 
sensibility,  I  mean),  or  merely  to  lessening  of  actual  muscle 
pressure,  is  a  question.  I  think  the  latter  is  a  great  factor  but 
that  the  sensory  "inhibition"  is  real  too.  (Subjects  say  they  feel 
"feathery"  in  their  contact  with  the  clothes  and  couch).  This 
of  itself  does  not  become  the  adequate  or  sufficient  basis  of  the 
illusion  of  levitation  till  the  vaso-motor  relaxation  supervenes. 
Out  of  the  combination,  there  arises  the  bodily  "stimulus" 
(negative  in  this  case)  which  becomes  the  foundation  of  the 
illusion  of  soaring.  [The  subject  reacts  to  absence  of  sensation.} 

As  to  the  rhythmical  sensation  which  pierces  through  or 
relieves  the  "numbness,"  I  can  only  guess  (yet  with  some  con- 
viction) that  the  different  angles  of  travel  (e.  g.  whether  hori- 
zontally or  vertically)  are  "apperceptions"  dependent  upon  the 
form  of  the  blood  pressure  waves  which  are  perceptible  at  the 
time. 

At  the  risk  of  doing  too  much  guessing,  I  suggest  that  the 
respiratory  wave  usually  influences  the  flights  where  the  "soar- 
ing" is  moderately  high.  As  to  the  vertical  flight,  it  may  be  due 
to  the  staccato  sensation  of  the  pulse-wave,  and  the  more  hori- 
zontal flight  may  be  connected  with  longer  or  secondary  Traube- 
Hering  waves  such  as  observed  by  Mosso  (Cf.  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  article  "Sleep.") 

THE  ILLUSION  AS  APPERCEPTIVE  ERROR 

As  to  the  mental  content  of  the  illusion,  it  is  simply  an 
apperception  by  analogy  of  the  meaning  of  bodily  lightness. 
(Principle  of  reaction  by  analogy).  As  to  the  element  of  wish 
fulfilment  in  the  dreams,  my  observations  in  cases  of  actual  Fly- 
ing Dreams  in  ordinary  sleep,  show  that  there  is  often  a  sense  of 
pleasure  and  a  desire  to  control  the  imagined  flight.  A  certain 
pride  in  it  may  be  manifested;  also  a  desire  to  "show  others 
how."  But  this  desire  is  not,  as  has  been  supposed  by  some, 
connected  with  any  erotic  tendency.  (Freud.)  This  is,  if  my 
studies  in  this  connection  mean  anything,  an  expression  of 
the  "appetite  for  repose."  The  dream  satisfies  the  wish  cor- 
poreally at  the  same  time  that  it  symbolizes  it  as  a  flight!  It  is 
not  necessary  to  explain  the  flight  as  a  desire  to  fly,  or  to  be 
free.  The  only  law  of  "symbolism"  needed  to  explain  the 
flying  illusion,  is  inference  from  analogy,  or  apperception 
through  similarity. 


52  The  Illusion  of  Levitation 

We  know  so  little  about  DEEP  REPOSE  that  we  try  to  explain 
its  sensation  in  some  fanciful  way,  such  as  flying,  simply  because 
it  is  the  only  concept  that  reconciles  the  sense  of  detachment 
from  bodily  support  (lessened  pressure  sense)  with  the  feeling  of 
rise  and  fall  caused  by  the  changing  blood  pressure. 

The  psychic  state  as  a  whole  contains  many  interesting 
points  that  I  have  not  yet  brought  out  in  this  letter.  For  this 
is  a  mere  outline.  I  may  say,  however,  that  each  element  can 
be  referred  to  a  specific  source  and  that  nowhere  is  there  neces- 
sarily any  erotic  element,  as  suggested  by  Freud  and  such  as, 
according  to  my  studies,  appears  in  skating  and  sledding  or 
sleighing  dreams.  Of  course  I  do  not  pretend  that  there  is  any 
mystical  barrier  to  preclude  a  mere  coincidence  between  this 
restful  dream  and  some  erotic  fancy.5 

THE  SOURCES   OF  MYSTICAL  QUALITY 

The  Flying  Dream,  in  my  belief,  borrows  its  interest  and 
fascination  from  a  realm  of  experience  which  today  lies  curtained 
over  by  inattention,  by  a  mist  of  drowsiness,  I  might  say;  for 
we  approach  this  phenomenal  world  of  repose  usually  only  when 
drowsy  and  when  the  consciousness  is  in  a  fragmented  condition, 
with  powers  of  judgment  and  observation  in  abeyance. 

Now,  the  conscious  observation  of  the  phenomena  in  question 
becomes  possible  through  the  cultivation  of  the  state  of  regulated 
attention  that  I  have  called  the  "Mid-State."  This  state 
leads  readily  to  the  passive  attitude  which  I  have  referred  to  as 
the  Kinesthetic  Repose  and  which  is  not  far  removed  from  the 
Esthetic  Repose. 

The  attainment  of  the  corresponding  physiological  rest- 
states  is  an  end  with  which  mankind  have,  I  believe,  largely 
concerned  themselves  at  all  times.  But  the  tendency  has  been 
toward  a  mis-valuation  of  the  means  (artistic  "support,"  erotic 
"support")  whereby  these  states  have  been  made  interesting. 

I  mean  that  the  intermediate  state  between  waking  and 
activity  has  become  interesting  to  people,  almost  exclusively 
when  met,  not  Simon  pure,  but  as  incidentally  determined  by 
some  "fascinating"  matter,  like  art,  dancing,  hypnotism  or  the 
rapture  of  worship. 

For  it  usually  requires  something  more  than  scientific 
interest  to  hold  the  average  subject  to  so  paradoxical  a  task  as 

5Repose  has  pleasures  sui  generis;  but  in  those  who,  by  definition,  hold  all  pleasure  to  be 
"sexual,"  even  rest-sensations  might  be  apperceived  as  libidinous. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  53 


that  of  tasting  pure  repose  for  its  own  sake.  The  unseizable 
quality  of  an  exercise  in  relaxation  has  required  of  its  adepts 
and  devotees  that  they  should  go  at  the  matter  as  if  it  were  some- 
thing else  they  were  doing  and  getting  the  relaxation  as  a  by- 
product. Accordingly,  outside  experiments  like  mine  one  rarely 
meets  relaxation  except  under  a  disguise.  Thus  I  believe  that  a 
great  many  elements  of  religious  or  mystical  experience  hitherto 
regarded  as  social  or  sexual  will  be  found  to  pertain  more  im- 
portantly to  physiological  rest-states. 

All  the  arts  of  Recreation  have,  as  their  goal,  of  course, 
essentially  the  attainment  of  a  better  balance  in  the  Rest-Func- 
tion; to  that  extent  being  physiological  pursuits. 

PRACTICAL    CONSIDERATIONS 

I  believe  that  the  cultivation  of  rest-states  as  such  is  destined 
to  play  a  large  part  in  Applied  Psychology  before  long.  It  is, 
however,  a  realm  of  experience  where  the  gold  has  been  too  often 
mingled  with  the  dross.  It  is  a  field  of  interest  where  fakirs 
have  abounded  and  into  which  many  trends  of  degeneracy  have 
entered  at  one  time  or  another.  I  regard  this  as  the  reason  why 
scientists  have  fought  shy  of  the  psychophysical  problems  in 
question.  But  these  problems  are  none  the  less  worthy  of 
attention,  from  the  standpoint  of  Biological  Psychology. 

In  view  of  the  many  difficulties  I  have  found  in  this  problem 
I  want  to  thank  you  for  the  encouragement  you  have  given  to 
these  studies  and  for  having  been  the  one  to  make  it  seem  worth 
while  to  go  on  toward  a  definite  conclusion.  As  to  the  ultimate 
use  of  this  work,  I  shall  report  again. 

Meantime,  believe  me, 


Yours  very  sincerely, 

L.  H. 

(To  be  Continued) 


REVIEWS 

THE  CHEMICAL  DYNAMICS  OF  THE  CENTRAL  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.1 
A  RESUME   OF   THE  WORK   OF  T.   BRAILSFORD   ROBERTSON 

Dr.  Robertson's  experimental  work  is  of  unusual  interest  by  itself 
and  his  application  of  his  results  in  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena 
of  hypnotism,  sleep,  etc.,  adds  to  the  attractiveness  of  his  papers. 
Further  a  good  illustration  of  ingenious  inductive  reasoning  is  found 
in  his  method  of  forming  hypotheses. 

In  formulating  his  theory  of  the  chemical  processes  underlying 
nervous  activity  he  begins  with  the  fact  well  known  to  psychologists 
that  mental  work  at  first  facilitates  performance  and  later  depresses  it. 
In  committing  a  verse  to  memory,  for  instance,  it  is  common  experience 
that  with  the  first  few  repetitions  there  is  progressive  improvement 
in  performance,  but  if  the  effort  is  continued  too  long,  errors  occur  in 
lines  that  a  moment  before  were  correctly  given.  Indeed  this  principle 
is  not  confined  to  the  nervous  system,  but  is  found  also  in  the  "stair- 
case" contraction  of  voluntary  muscle  and  in  the  rapidity  of  growth. 
A  natural  deduction  from  this  principle  is  that  each  performance  leaves 
some  sort  of  "trace"  that  affects  the  succeeding  performance.  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Robertson  this  "trace"  may  be  either  static  i.  e.,  con- 
sisting of  a  structural  alteration  in  the  tissue,  or  dynamic  i.  e.,  chemical. 
He  brings  forward  a  number  of  objections  to  the  first  alternative,  and 
so  the  second  is  left  for  consideration.  In  the  case  of  the  nervous 
system,  then,  there  is,  according  to  this  conclusion,  underlying  each 
impulse  a  chemical  reaction  that  somehow  leaves  behind  it  a  "trace." 
To  account  for  the  early  facilitation  and  later  depression  it  must  be 
assumed  that  the  reaction  at  first  progressively  increases  and  later  be- 
comes slowed:  Two  types  of  chemical  reaction  of  this  sort  are  known,— 
the  catenary  and  the  auto-catalytic.  Only  the  latter  corresponds 
with  the  symmetry  and  time  relations  of  the  curve  of  memorizing. 

That  nervous  activity  is  really  determined  by  some  sort  of  chemical 
reaction  is  indicated  by  a  number  of  facts.  In  the  first  place  it  is  well 

iRobertson  T.  Brailsford, 

Sur  la  dynamique  chimique  du  systeme  nerveux  central.  Archives  Internationales  de 
physiologic,  1908,  VI,  388. 

On  the  biochemical  relationship  between  the  "staircase"  phenomenon  and  fatigue.  Bio~ 
chemische  Zeitschrift,  1908,  XI,  287. 

Further  studies  in  the  chemical  dynamics  of  the  central  nervous  system,  (1)  The  time  rela- 
tions of  a  simple  voluntary  movement.  Folia  neuro-biologica,  1912,  VI,  553  Ib.  (2)  On  the 
physiological  conditions  underlying  phenomena  of  heightened  suggestibility,  hypnosis, 
multiple  personality,  sleep,  etc.  Id.  1913,  VII,  309. 

54 


Review  55 

known  that  a  chemical  reaction  is  accelerated  much  more  than  a 
physical  by  the  application  of  heat.  A  rise  in  temperature  of  one 
degree  will  rarely  increase  a  physical  reaction  over  two  per  cent  while 
a  chemical  is  usually  increased  over  ten  per  cent.  Biologists  frequently 
use  this  distinction  in  determining  whether  a  reaction  is  chemical  or 
physical.  Dr.  Robertson  carried  through  a  series  of  experiments 
trying  the  effect  on  the  rate  of  respiration  of  the  temperature  of  the 
medulla,  and  found  that  the  results  indicated  that  the  activity  in  the 
respiratory  centre  was  chemical  in  nature  rather  than  physical.  So- 
also  the  effect  on  the  heart  rate  of  the  limulus  found  by  Carlson  to- 
result  from  changes  in  the  temperature  of  the  cardiac  ganglion  is  in: 
favor  of  the  chemical  view.  With  some  nerve  impulses,  however,  the 
observed  effect  of  heat  is  intermediate  between  that  to  be  expected 
with  a  chemical  reaction  and  that  of  a  physical.  The  result  is  what 
should  be  found,  if  the  reaction  were  in  part  (one-fourth)  physical  and 
in  part  (three-fourths)  chemical.  The  author  concludes  that  such  is 
probably  the  case,  the  cellular  component  being  chemical  and  that  of 
the  fiber  physical  (diffusion). 

Further  support  of  the  chemical  theory  is  to  be  found  in  the 
relation  of  nervous  activity  to  acids.  By  using  a  very  delicate  indica- 
tor the  author  was  able  to  demonstrate  that  acids  are  formed  in  the 
nervous  systems  of  frogs,  if  the  skin  is  subjected  to  prolonged  stimula- 
tion. In  some  other  experiments  he  found,  further, — and  his  results 
have  been  in  part  confirmed — that  acids  applied  to  the  respiratory 
center  increase  the  rate  of  respiration  while  reducing  agents  decrease 
it.  It  is  his  belief,  although  it  is  not  yet  firmly  established,  that  only 
acids  of  the  fatty  series  have  this  action. 

These  are  the  facts,  then,  that  point  to  the  chemical  basis  of  a  nerv- 
ous activity.  If  the  chemical  reactions  are  of  the  autocatalytic  type, 
the  time  relations  of  such  mental  phenomena  as  memory  and  volun- 
tary movement  should  correspond,  i.  e.,  should  be  symmetrical.  The 
author  brings  forward  evidence  to  show  that  such  is  the  case,  but  it  is 
not  easy  to  follow  his  involved  mathematical  calculations.  He  shows 
that  the  constant  relation  observed  by  Ebbinghaus  to  exist  between 
the  time  necessary  to  learn  a  series  of  nonsense  syllables  and  the  number 
of  times  they  had  been  repeated  24  hours  before  can  be  plotted  on  a 
curve  having  the  symmetry  and  time  relations  of  auto-catalytic  reac- 
tions. Again  the  law  of  Weber-Fechner  to  the  effect  that  perceptible 
changes  in  sensation  bear  a  constant  relation  to  the  intensity  of  stimu- 
lus is  also  found  to  be  in  accord  with  the  auto-catalytic  view.  The 
author  himself  made  a  study  of  the  process  of  learning  nonsense  sylla- 
bles, and  found  that  the  number  memorized  and  the  time  spent  in 


56  Review 

learning  them  corresponded  with  the  result  expected  from  this  theory. 
Finally  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  results  of  testing  the  time  relations 
of  a  simple  neuro-muscular  act,  viz.,  drawing  a  straight  line. 

This  last  series  of  experiments  brought  out  some  very  interesting 
facts.  The  apparatus  consisted  of  a  smooth  surface  composed  of 
alternate  strips  of  wood  and  metal  and  of  a  pencil  with  a  metal  tip  and 
having  electrical  connections  so  arranged  that  its  position  at  each 
moment  was  recorded  on  a  drum.  It  was  found  that  the  length  of 
the  lines  drawn  by  different  subjects  was  remarkably  constant,  when 
they  were  instructed  merely  to  draw  freely.  The  rapidity  with  which 
the  lines  were  drawn  varied  widely.  The  time  relations  were  of  the 
auto-catalytic  type,  the  speed  progressively  increasing  during  the  first 
half  and  thereafter  decreasing.  When  the  subjects  attempted  to  draw 
lines  of  an  indicated  length  or  to  stop  at  a  given  signal,  the  length  of 
the  lines  varied  greatly.  Evidently  it  was  not  possible  for  the  subject 
to  stop  when  he  wanted  to.  The  length  of  the  line  apparently  was 
determined  by  something  before  it  was  begun,  and  no  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  subject  could  later  alter  it.  The  "something"  regulating 
the  length  of  the  line  is  thought  to  be  a  definite  mass  of  brain  tissue 
somehow  set  aside  for  the  purpose.  This  tissue  represents  the  re- 
agents of  a  chemical  reaction,  and  once  the  reaction  begins,  it  can  not 
be  stopped  until  all  the  reagents  are  exhausted.  Only  the  initial  part 
of  the  nervous  activity — that  corresponding  to  the  setting  aside  of 
material,  is  under  the  control  of  the  will.  Finally  it  was  found  that 
the  simultaneous  performance  of  mental  work  decreased  the  velocity 
of  the  action.  The  reason  for  this  was  not  apparent. 

It  is  now  clear  how  the  author  supports  his  auto-catalytic  concep- 
tion. In  an  auto-catalytic  reaction  there  is  formed  as  a  product  a 
substance  that  quickens  the  reaction.  The  acceleration  is  possible 
only  within  certain  limits,  however,*  for  when  the  reagents  are  reduced 
to  a  certain  proportion,  the  rate  of  reaction  is  decreased  by  their  smaller 
concentration.  In  the  case  of  the  nervous  system  at  least,  he  believes 
the  auto-catalytic  substance  to  belong  to  the  fatty  acid  group,  and 
since  it  is  the  "trace,"  which  persists  for  some  time,  it  must  be  spar- 
ingly diffusible. 

Rather  startling  applications  of  these  conclusions  are  made  to  the 
facts  of  hypnosis,  multiple  personality,  sleep,  etc.  The  depth,  or 
permanency  and  importance,  of  "traces"  is  determined  partly  by  the 
character  of  the  precedent  mental  activity  and  partly  by  the  frequency 
of  its  occurrence.  Habits  and  instincts  represent  deep  "traces." 
If  "traces"  are  not  used  they  tend  to  fade.  When  shallow  "traces" 
cross  deeper  ones,  there  is  a  tendency  for  impulses  in  the  former  to  be 


Review  57 

deflected  into  the  latter.  Thus  a  very  deep  "trace"  might  separate 
almost  completely  one  mental  field  from  another.  Should  a  field  so 
separated  be  large  enough,  it  might  assume  automatic  activity  and 
thus  constitute  a  secondary  personality.  If  it  should  get  too  small 
for  this,  it  would  be  represented  in  consciousness  as  a  memory  gap, 
such  as  is  found  in  hysteria. 

In  the  production  of  hypnosis  the  important  thing  seems  to  be 
to  so  deepen  a  few  "traces"  that  practically  all  conscious  impulses 
will  follow  them.  In  most  procedures  this  is  brought  about  by  pro- 
ducing fatigue  which  serves  to  block  all  shallower  channels  and  by  the 
concentration  of  attention.  In  Charcot's  method,  however,  where  a 
bright  light  or  a  loud  noise  is  used  to  induce  hypnosis,  the  channels 
are  deepened  by  the  character  of  the  impulses.  Light  anesthesia  is  a 
useful  adjuvant  because  it  depresses  all  nervous  activity  and  hence 
leaves  only  the  deeper  channels  open  to  impulses. 

Sleep  is  brought  about  by  a  mechanism  somewhat  like  that  of 
hypnosis.  Fatigue  cuts  out  all  but  a  few  sensory  pathways  which 
in  turn  become  fatigued  through  overwork  and  blocked,  thus  cutting 
out  all  sensory  stimuli.  Later  as  the  excess  of  auto-catalyst  drains 
off,  the  sensory  threshold  may  become  lower  for  a  short  time  but  as 
more  of  the  auto-catalyst  diffuses  away,  it  rises  again.  Finally  the 
threshold  falls  when  the  reagents  recuperate  and  when  it  reaches  a 
level  low  enough,  the  individual  awakens. 

The  author's  criticism  of  the  theory  of  the  discontinuity  of  neurones 
seems  a  bit  hasty  in  view  of  the  facts  of  secondary  degeneration  and 
of  some  of  the  results  of  Sherrington. 

The  suggestion  of  Dr.  Robertson  that  the  auto-catalyst  of  the 
nervous  system  may  be  a  member  of  the  fatty  acid  series  gains  in 
significance,  if  some  of  the  properties  of  fatty  acids  are  kept  in  mind. 
Mathews2  states  that  the  changes  in  linseed  oil  in  paints  have  a  curi- 
ous resemblance  to  protoplasmic  respiration,  memory  and  growth. 
The  oil  oxidizes  spontaneously  in  the  air  and  especially  in  the  light  and 
decomposes,  forming  a  hard  resinous  mass  of  undetermined  composi- 
tion. In  oxidizing  it  actually  respires  in  that  it  takes  up  oxygen  and 
gives  off  carbon  dioxide.  It  also  may  be  said  to  grow  for  the  decom- 
position products  are  more  complex  than  linolenic  acid  itself.  In  short 
the  oil  undergoes  metabolism.  The  so-called  dryers  of  paints  (copper, 
manganese  dioxide,  turpentine,  etc.)  act  like  the  catalytic  agents  in 
cell  metabolism  because  they  accelerate  the  oxidation  and  decomposi- 
tion of  the  oil. 

4 Mathews,  Physiological  chemistry,  New  York,  1915. 


58  Review 

Further  it  may  be  said  that  linseed  oil  has  memory.  It  can  be 
taught  to  undergo  oxidation  and  remembers  its  lesson.  In  it  the 
oxidation  process,  like  all  auto-catalytic  reactions,  begins  slowly  and 
gradually  increases  in  rate.  If  after  oxidation  has  begun,  it  is  inter- 
rupted by  being  placed  in  the  dark,  -when  again  placed  in  the  light  it 
begins  sooner  and  proceeds  at  a  more  rapid  rate  than  when  first  ex- 
posed. In  other  words  the  oil  remembers  the  lesson  learned  in  the 
first  exposure;  but  if  kept  in  the  dark  too  long,  itf  orgets.  After  24 
hours  in  the  dark,  oxidation  is  as  slow  in  beginning  and  proceeds  no 
more  quickly  than  in  the  beginning. 

It  may  be  that  memory  is  possible  because  there  are  substances 
like  linolenic  acid  in  the  nerve  cells.  In  cephalin  are  found  very  un- 
saturated  fatty  acids  akin  to  linolenic  acid.  In  the  nervous  system* 
however,  the  catalytic  agents  must  be  much  more  stable  than  that  in 
linseed  oil  because  memory  persists  for  a  long  time. 

L.  B.  ALFORD. 
Boston  State  Hospital. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  MENTAL  HYGIENE.  By  William  A.  White,  M.  D. 
With  an  Introduction  by  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D.  New 
York:  The  Macmillan  Company,  1917,  pp.  XIV  plus  317,  with  index. 
Price  $2.00. 

This  new  book  by  White  fills  a  definite  need.  It  easily  takes  its 
place  as  a  valuable  book  for  orienting  the  average  physician  and  lay- 
man toward  the  problems  confronting  us  in  that  department  of  mental 
hygiene  which  we  may  refer  to  as  social  mental  hygiene,  in  contra- 
distinction to  individual  mental  hygiene.  White's  book  is  not  to  be 
looked  upon  as  presenting  anything  like  a  definite,  constructive  pro- 
gram for  the  social  mental  hygiene  movement,  but  I  venture  to  say 
that  it  will  give  valuable  viewpoints  even  to  many  who  are  already 
engaged  in  this  fight.  For  the  must  part  White  devotes  his  efforts 
toward  a  survey  of  the  general  situation  which  one  meets  with  in  the 
social  mental  hygiene  movement  and  toward  the  building  up  of  rational, 
broad  viewpoints  which  should  dominate  the  workers  in  this  field. 

Following  his  introduction  he  discusses  "Underlying  Concepts. '* 
In  this  chapter  he  considers  adapatation  and  integration  and  other 
psychological  considerations.  He  divides  the  types  of  human  adapta- 
tion into  physical,  physico-chemical,  sensorimotor,  psychological,  and 
social,  which  act  by  virtue  of  the  lever,  hormone,  reflex,  idea  and  social 
custom  respectively.  ^. 

In  the  next  chapter  on  "Mental  Mechanisms"  White  lays  ^stress 
on  and  repectedly  refers  to  "the  instinct  for  the  familiar  and  the'safety 
motive. " 


Review  59 

Chapter  IV  develops  and  discusses  in.  an  extremely  interesting 
and  enlightened  manner  the  concept  of  the  term  "insane."  White 
shows  the  inadequacy  of  this  term  and  its  limitations,  and  presents 
our  most  modern  views  and  with  suggestions  for  improvement  in 
dealing  with  this  class  of  socially  inadequate  persons.  His  chapter  on 
"The  Criminal"  is  perhaps  the  best  in  the  book.  He  exposes  some 
of  the  absurdities  of  our  present  legal  attitude  toward  the  criminal, 
and  brings  home  to  us  forcibly  that  the  criminal  and  not  the  crime 
should  be  the  object  of  study.  The  hate  motive  as  it  enters  into  the 
situation  is  elaborated  upon  here  and  in  other  sections  of  the  book. 
The  vengeance  of  society  upon  the  criminal  as  a  scapegoat  is  very 
nicely  developed.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  novel  and  important 
concept.  He  gives  the  modern  psychopathological  trend  in  our  estima- 
tion of  the  criminal  and  offers  some  valuable  suggestions  for  the  correc- 
tion of  criminal  procedure  and  the  treatment  of  criminals.  Juvenile 
delinquency  does  not  come  in  for  much  consideration  in  this  chapter. 

Again  under  the  heading  "The  Feeble-minded"  there  follows 
general  discussion  with  suggestions. 

In  Chapter  VII  on  "Miscellaneous  Groups"  White  discusses  in 
running  fashion  the  pauper,  the  prostitute,  the  inebriate,  the  epileptic, 
the  homosexual,  the  vagrant,  and  the  homeless  unemployed,  while 
in  the  following  chapter  which  is  headed  "Miscellaneous  Problems" 
he  makes  some  remarks  on  such  varying  topics  as  patent  medicine 
"cures,"  fatigue,  divorce,  the  woman  movement,  free  speech,  illegiti- 
macy, social  hygiene,  dangerous  occupations,  vocational  psychology, 
fads,  wealth,  idleness,  old  age  and  death. 

In  the  chapter  on  "The  Neuroses-Psychoanalysis"  with  its  dis- 
cussion of  character  anomalies  we  have  the  first  inclusion  in  a  definite 
fashion  of  what  may  be  called  individual  mental  hygiene. 

His  final  chapter  on  "Summary"  terminates  with  the  following 
sentence  which  expresses  the  object  of  White's  efforts  in  this  book: 

"To  see  man  as  a  social  animal  and  his  failures  as  forms  of  social 
inadequacy;  to  approach  these  problems  free  from  prejudice  and  with 
a  full  appreciation  that  in  each  instance  the  failure  has  back  of  it 
causes  adequate  to  explain  it;  then  to  attempt  to  bring  to  bear  upon 
the  problem  those  forces  which  are  best  calculated  to  bring  about 
results  which  are  constructively  of  the  highest  value  to  both  the  in- 
dividual and  society ;  and  then  to  be  able  to  apply  the  principles  worked 
out  in  dealing  with  the  individual  cases  to  the  larger,  more  general 
issues — these  are  the  problems  of  Mental  Hygiene." 

White  lives  up  to  his  reputation  and  hence  our  expectations  in 
this,  his  late:  t  production.  He  writes  freely,  with  great  lucidity, 


60  Review 

entertainingly,  informingly,  and  in  lively  fashion.  One  who  begins 
to  read  the  work  will"  not  lay  it  aside  until  he  has  finished  it — if  White 
catches  the  other  fellow  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  reviewer  was  at  the 
time  he  took  the  work  in  hand. 

The  volume  can  be  recommended  for  study  by  all  who  would  gain 
a  good  grasp  of  the  fundamental  problems  of  social  mental  hygiene. 
It  will  give  such  a  reader  worth  while  attitudes  toward  the  various 
classes  of  socially  inadequate  persons,  if  he  has  not  held  them  before. 

The  author  does  not  discuss  social  inadequacy  due  to  organic 
diseases,  and  the  problems  of  individual  mental  hygiene  were  not,  I 
believe,  originally  intended  to  be  included  within  the  purview  of  his 
discussion. 

The  book,  therefore,  should,  perhaps,  have  been  labelled:  "Prin- 
ciples of  Social  Mental  Hygiene. " 

It  should  have  a  wide  reading. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 

THE  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  By  W.  B.  Pillsbury. 
New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company,  1916.  Pp.  562. 

This  textbook  is  intended  for  college  students  who  are  to  devote 
a  whole  year  to  an  introductory  course  in  psychology,  and  it  is  planned 
therefore  on  a  larger  scale  than  the  author's  shorter  work  "The  Essen- 
tials of  Psychology."  Otherwise  it  has  many  points  of  similarity  with 
the  earlier  work.  A  notable  extension  and  enrichment  by  many  good 
illustrations  occur  in  the  second  and  third  chapters,  which  deal  with 
the  nervous  system  and  cover  more  than  eighty  pages.  The  reviewer, 
however,  fails  to  discover  any  justification  for  this  elaborate  treatment 
of  a  foreign  subject-matter,  in  as  much  as  the  rest  of  the  text  is  just  as 
intelligible  to  the  average  student  who  has  not  mastered  this  part,  the 
author  finding  little  occasion  to  refer  back  to  the  principles  discussed 
in  these  two  chapters. 

The  facts  of  visual  sensations  are  treated  in  the  fourth  chapter, 
while  those  of  visual  perception  of  space  and  movement  are  relegated 
to  the  eighth  and  ninth  chapters,  an  orthodox  division  of  subject- 
matter  which  has  little  else  in  its  favor  but  tradition.  The  other 
sensations  are  dealt  with  in  the  fifth  chapter,  which  is  followed  by  a 
brief  discussion  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  images  and  their  laws  of 
association.  Instead  of  following  this  topic  up  with  a  discussion  of 
memory,  imagination,  and  reasoning,  the  logical  train  of  thought  is 
again  interrupted,  a  chapter  on  attention  and  two  chapters  on  per- 
ception preceding  the  resumption  of  the  discussion  of  memory  and 
reasoning.  The  last  four  chapters  represent  perhaps  the  most  system- 


Review  61 

atic  part  of  the  whole  work,  dealing  successively  with  instinct,  feeling 
and  affection,  emotion  and  temperament,  will  and  self.  Here,  if 
anywhere,  the  reader  will  begin  to  realize  that  psychology  does  attempt 
to  study  mental  life  as  a  system  of  interrelated  mental  phenomena 
functioning  and  behaving  toward  each  other  according  to  certain  in- 
herent laws  of  unified  activity.  In  this  lack  of  interrelationship 
between  the  different  topics  treated  the  present  volume  is  certainly 
not  as  successful  as  the  author's  earlier  work. 

There  are  several  minor  details  of  inaccuracy  in  statement,  one 
of  which  at  least  (p.  241,  concerning  the  distribution  of  clearness)  is  a 
recurrence  from  the  "Essentials."  The  matter  of  references  seems 
to  be  dealt  with  in  a  somewhat  arbitrary  manner;  in  some  places 
several  titles  are  mentioned  in  connection  with  minor  details,  while 
in  other  places  more  important  topics  are  not  supported  by  any  refer- 
ences to  the  literature.  The  author  has  tried  to  maintain  a  neutral 
attitude  where  the  subject-matter  is  still  in  the  controversial  stage, 
and  has  succeeded  in  it  fairly  well.  While  the  text  is  not  suited  for 
individual  self-instruction,  it  promises  to  be  a  successful  aid  in  the 
class-room  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful  instructor. 

L.  R.  GEISSLER. 

Clark  University,  Worcester,  Mass. 

AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  SEX 
By  S.  Herbert,  M.  D.,  M.  R.  C.  S.  (England),  L.  R.  C.  P.  (London). 
London:  A.  &  C.  Black,  Ltd.,  1917.      (The    Macmillan    Company, 
America).       Pp.    xii,   126.       Illustrations,   49,  20x14   c.   m.     $1.25, 
3/6  net. 

RATIONAL  SEX  ETHICS.  A  Physiological  and  Psychological  Study 
of  the  Sex  Lives  of  Normal  Men  and  Women,  with  Suggestions  for  a 
Rational  Sex  Hygiene.  By  W.  F.  Robie,  A.B.,  M.D.,  Superintendent 
Pine  Terrace,  Baldwinville,  Mass.  Boston:  Richard  G.  Badger,  1917. 
Pp.  356,  20x14  c.  m.  $3.50  net. 

THE  SEX  WORSHIP  AND  SYMBOLISM  OF  PRIMITIVE  RACES.  An 
Interpretation  by  Sanger  Brown  II,  M.  D.,  Assistant  Physician, 
Bloomingdale  Hospital.  With  an  Introduction  by  James  H.  Leuba. 
Boston:  Richard  G.  Badger,  1917.  Pp.  145.  20x14  c.  m.  $3.00  net. 

These  three  books  may  properly  be  presented  together  to  the 
notice  of  psychopathologists  and  psychologists  and  therethrough  to 
men  and  women  who  need  their  information  and  practical  wisdom. 
There  is  nothing  about  any  of  them  that  demands  much  space. 

Doctor  Herbert's  volume  deals  clearly  with  the  biology  of  sex, 
the  physiology  of  sex,  the  physiology  of  reproduction,  the  psychology 


62  Review 

of  sex,  aberrations  of  sex,  and  the  sexual  norm  (each  having  a  chapter), 
a  conclusion,  a  small  bibiliography,  and  an  index.  It  is  a  useful  book 
to  very  many,  and  is  suitable  for  the  instruction  of  adolescents  in  re- 
productive affairs. 

"The  book  is  intended  to  fill  a  serious  gap  in  the  literature  dealing 
with  sex.  It  aims  at  giving  the  important  facts  about  sex,  mating, 
and  reproduction,  from  the  physiological  and  psychological  point  of 
view.  It  gathers  together  for  the  general  reader  a  vast  array  of  facts 
which  have  hitherto  only  been  accessible  to  the  student  specializing 
in  the  subject." 

Of  the  many  such  treatises,  it  appears  to  be  at  least  as  good  as 
any  other.  It  is  honored  by  its  dedication  to  Havelock  Ellis,  the 
world's  leading  authority  on  the  psychological  aspects  of  this  great 
difference  of  sex  dividing  life. 

"Rational  Sex  Ethics,"  even  at  the  price  of  $3.50,  would  be  of 
inestimable  value  towards  the  happiness  of  multitudes  of  women  and 
of  men  who  do  not  know  how  to  conduct  their  common  marital  life. 
Even  at  the  price  it  is  cheaper  than  the  divorce  that  might  be  bought 
in  its  place,  for  the  advice  in  the  book  leads  certainly  to  the  cessation 
of  much  unhappiness.  "Time  was  when  writers  on  sex  subjects  strove 
to  prescribe  correct  sex  living  from  no  other  authority  than  their  own 
imaginations.  Most  present-day  books  on  sex  are  a  record  of  facts 
obtained  from  those  whose  sex  lives  have  been  abnormal.  The  fallacy 
of  the  former  teaching  has  long  been  evident,  the  incompleteness  of 
the  other  is  fast  becoming  realized. 

"The  present  work  aims  to  utilize  any  facts  of  value  heretofore 
obtained  and  to  supplement  these  with  the  knowledge  obtained  from 
the  complete  sex  histories  of  several  hundred  normal,  educated,  success- 
ful, moral,  and  altruistic  men  and  women. " 

The  book  is  advertised  as  "for  sale  only  to  the  members  of  the 
medical  and  legal  professions, "  which  is  good  advertising.  Just  now- 
a-days  when  folks  in  this  world  of  ours  are  none  too  happy,  and  when 
too,  birth-rates  are  low  and  lowering,  the  sound  advice  of  this  book  is 
of  especial  use — and  will  be  gratefully  appreciated  by  such  as  care 
to  pay  the  price.  Doctor  Robie  has  done  his  part  well. 

"The  Sex  Worship  and  Symbolism  of  Primitive  Races"  is  a  small 
work  of  large  type  and  thick  paper — not  over  nineteen  thousand  words. 
The  advertisement  not  inaptly  gives  their  drift: 

"This  simple  presentation  of  a  fundamental  motive  should  appeal 
to  everyone  who  is  at  all  interested  in  mental  evolution.  The  historical 


Review  63 

portion  of  the  book  gives  a  description  of  sex  worship  which  had  its 
origin  in  the  mind  of  primitive  man,  but  which  continued  its  influence, 
—unrecognized  for  the  most  part, — through  the  past  ages  down  to  the 
present  day. 

"A  parallel  is  drawn  between  the  history  of  this  motive  in  the 
collective  mind  of  the  race  and  the  influence  of  the  sex  motive  in  the 
life  of  the  normal  individual. " 

GEORGE  V.  N.  DEARBORN. 

Cambridge 


WAR  BULLETIN 

AN  IMPERATIVE  APPEAL  FOR  MEDICAL,  OFFICERS 

An  urgent  and  imperative  appeal  has  just  been  issued  by  the 
Surgeon  General  of  the  United  States  Army,  for  doctors  for  the  Medical 
Reserve  Corps. 

There  are  today,  15,174  officers  of  the  Medical  Reserve  Corps  on 
active  duty  and  the  Medical  Department  has  reached  the  limit  of 
medical  officers  at  the  present  time  available  for  assignment.  With 
these  facts  before  the  medical  profession  of  this  country,  we  believe 
that  every  doctor  who  is  physically  qualified  for  service  between  the 
age  of  21  and  55  years,  will  come  forward  now  and  apply  for  a  com- 
mission in  the  Medical  Reserve  Corps. 

The  Surgeon  General  says:  "So  far  the  United  States  has  been 
involved  only  in  the  preparatory  phase  of  this  war.  We  are  now 
about  to  enter  upon  the  active  or  fighting  phase,  which  will  make 
enormous  demands  upon  the  resources  of  the  country."  The  con- 
servation of  these  resources,  especially  that  of  man-power,  depends 
entirely  upon  an  adequate  medical  service. 

Drafts  of  men  will  continually  follow  drafts,  each  of  which  will 
require  its  proportionate  number  of  medical  officers  and  there  are  at 
this  time  on  the  available  list  of  the  Medical  Reserve  Corps,  an  insuffi- 
cient number  to  meet  the  demands  of  these  drafts. 

The  real  necessity  for  the  complete  mobilization  of  the  entire 
profession  is  imperative.  It  is  not  a  question  of  a  few  hundred  men 
volunteering  for  service,  but  of  the  mobilization  of  the  profession  for 
the  conservation  of  the  resources  of  this  country. 

STAND  BY  OUR  BOYS,  YOUR  BOYS,  THEIR  BOYS.  Re- 
member the  gallant  French  in  '76.  The  British  who  stood  by  Dewey 
in  1898.  The  Garibaldis  who  were  always  for  LIBERTY. 

The  rapid  expansion  of  the  Army  calls  for  a  largely  expanded 
Medical  Reserve  Corps.  The  Surgeon  General  has  issued  a  most 
earnest  appeal  for  doctors.  The  Department  has  reached  the  limit 
of  medical  officers  available  for  assignment. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


VOL.  XIII  JUNE,  1918  NUMBER 


ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


THE   PRACTICAL  MEASUREMENT  OF 
PSYCHOPATHIC   BEHAVIOR1 

H.    I.    GOSLINE, 

CAPTAIN,  M.  R.  C.,    U.  S.  ARMY 

THE  practical  measurement  of  behavior  has  never  been 
seriously  attempted  on  a  large  scale  in  the  human  being. 
Even  in  the  case  of  child  psychology  or  of  animal  study, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  attempts  made  can  be  given  more 
serious   consideration  than  any   other  mere   record   of  events, 
however  well  such  observation  may  have  been  controlled  by 
the  conditions  of  the  experiment.     There  has  been  a  vast  amount 
of  study  and  record  of  behavior,  and  there  is  a  vast  amount  of 
routine  work  on  the  behavior  of  the  psychopathic,  \vhich  can  be 
used  practically  even  in  its  crude  present  state.     And  later  we 
may  hope  to  perfect  the  crude  condition  of  our  material  by  per- 
sistent efforts  in  the  right  direction. 

The  material  gained  from  the  routine  ward  reports  of  physi- 
cians and  nurses  in  the  hospitals  for  the  mentally  incapacitated, 
forms  a  treasure  of  great  potential  value,  if  we  have  a  unit  of 
measure  by  which  it  can  be  integrated.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that  such  observations  can  ever  compare  in  scientific  fineness 
with  the  material  gained  by  the  well  controlled  experiment  but 
I  do  claim  that  this  crude  matter  can  be  compared  and  rendered 
of  practical  value  and  that  even  the  experimentally  controlled 
material  can  be  rendered  more  tangible  by  the  application  of  a 
unit  of  measure  which  is  at  hand. 

1  Presented  at  the  Meeting  of  the  American  Psychopathological  Association  held  at  Atlantic 
City,  N.  J.,  May  11,  1918. 

Copyright  1918  by  Richard  G.  Badger.     All  Rights  Resetted. 

65 


(>G          Practical  Measurement  of  Psychopathic  Behavior 

There  are  two  sorts  of  unit  of  measure;  those  which  measure 
material  things  and  those  which  "measure  time."  The  words 
"measure  time"  are  purposely  put  in  quotation  marks  because 
they  contain  a  riddle  which  has  never  been  satisfactorily  solved. 
A  quotation  will  serve  to  show  the  cloudy  confusion  which  exists 
with  regard  to  the  idea  even  in  the  minds  of  the  well  informed, 
in  1909.  The  quotation  is  as  follows:  "So  the  ingenuity  of 
man  goes  on  measuring  this  earthly  element  of  time.  Laplace 
said  that  'Time  is  to  us  the  impression  left  on  the  memory  by  a 
series  of  events,'  and  that  motion,  and  motion  only,  can  be  used 
in  measuring  it.  Thus  it  is  motion,  whether  of  the  shadow  on  the 
grass,,  the  dropping  of  water  or  the  continuous  oscillations  of  a 
swinging  body,  which  is  the  necessary  and  unvarying  element  in 
all  the  measurements  of  time."1 

It  is  apparent  to  everyone  that  two  concepts  are  confused  in 
the  mind  of  the  writer  of  this  quotation;  the  concept  as  to  the 
nature  of  time  and  the  concept  as  to  how  time  is  measured.  The 
concept  as  to  the  method  by  which  time  is  measured  is  clear  but 
the  real  significance  of  the  measurement,  the  implications  of  the 
measurement,  are  lost  sight  of. 

The  gist  of  the  quotation  is  really  centred  in  Laplace's 
concept  of  the  nature  of  time,  especially  the  "series  of  events" 
part  of  it.  He  took  the  "impression  on  the  memory"  to  be  of 
prime  significance  but  later  psychological  research  has  made 
some  improvement  on  this  conception.  According  to  intro- 
spective psychology3  time  is  filled  with  a  variety  of  sensations, 
the  source  of  which  is  our  bodily  reactions.  We  are  able  to  per- 
ceive the  lapse  of  time  by  a  special  combination  of  sensations  in 
which  increase  and  decrease  of  tension  play  a  role.  Our  per- 
ception depends  on  an  incoming  current  and  upon  the  discharge 
of  the  centrifugal  system.  The  discharge  of  the  centrifugal 
system  influences  the  sensory  process  itself. 

But  here  introspective  psychology  stops  and  we  must  use 
other  tools  if  we  would  proceed.  It  has  succeeded  in  more  satis- 
factorily locating  the  seat  of  our  time  sense  in  the  interplay 
between  the  primary  sensory  process  and  the  kinaesthetic  sensa- 
tions aroused  by  the  reaction  process,  but  one  essential  factor 
remains  in  the  introspective  solution  as  in  the  solution  of  La- 
Science  History  of  the  Universe — Vol.  VIII,  Mathematics — Section  on  Mathematical 
Applications  by  Dr.  Franz  Bellinger — Current  Literature  Publishing  Co.,  New  York,  1909. 

sHrgo  Munsterberg— Psychology,  General  and  Applied,  p.  156.     D.  Appleton  &  Co..  New- 
York,  1914. 


H.  I.  Gosline  67 


place:  it  is  the  "series  of  events"  of  Laplace,  the  "incoming' 
current"  of  the  introspective  psychology. 

The  combined  ideas  of  the  central  location  of  the  time  sense 
"and  of  the  "series  of  events"  furnishes  us  the  essentials  of  a 
broader  concept  of  what  time  really  is  and  this  concept  is  better 
founded  than  ever  before.  We  can  now  discount  our  central 
process  and  it  becomes  clear  once  and  for  all  that  it  is  the  "series 
of  events"  which  is  prime.  It  is  the  motion  in  the  world  outside 
which  is  prime.  And  motion  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
change  in  relative  position  in  space.  Time  then  becomes  for  the 
thinker  only  a  measure  of  change  in  space. 

It  now  becomes  self-evident,  also,  why  "motion  and  motion 
only,  can  be  used  in  'measuring  time."  The  measurement  of 
time  is  merely  setting  up  a  mechanical  change  in  relative  position 
in  space  by  comparison  with  which  all  other  changes  in  relative 
position  in  space  can  be  measured. 

The  truth  of  this  proposition  is  demonstrated  nowhere  better 
than  in  practical  experience.  A  crude  illustration  is  the  placing 
of  a  crime  by  reference  to  a  certain  time.  The  effort  is  made  to 
crystallize  a  certain  setting,  a  certain  complex  of  relative  posi- 
tions in  space,  which  must  have  occurred  for  the  crime  to  have 
been  committed.  The  alibi  is  gained  by  proving  one  element 
in  the  complex  of  relative  positions  in  space  to  be  otherwise  than 
claimed  by  the  prosecution.  And  this  again  is  done  by  reference 
to  the  time  standard.  And  so,  by  reference  to  our  time  pieces, 
all  the  positions  in  the  world  of  experience  might  be  located  at 
the  moment  the  crime  was  committed. 

An  example  of  finer  measurement  is  the  study  of  the 
physiological  process  with  its  measurements  in  l-100ths  of 
seconds,  or  of  the  psychological  process  with  its  l-1000ths  of 
seconds.  But  the  findings  are  the  same  here  as  they  were  in  the 
crude  work  of  the  detective;  there  is  no  fundamental  difference 
but  only  a  quantitative  difference.  The  physiological  and  the 
psychological  experiment  seeks  in  essence  to  locate  the  relative 
position  in  space  of  the  elements  under  investigation,  with 
reference  to  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  experiment,  and  the 
1 -100th  of  a  second  or  the  l-1000th  of  a  second  is  merely  the 
mechanical  change  in  the  relative  position  in  space  which  must 
act  as  a  standard  of  comparison. 

So,  from  the  crudest  to  the  finest  examples,  time  remains  as 
the  unit  of  comparison  for  the  "series  of  events"  and  thus,  as 
one  sub-class  of  the  series  of  events,  all  function  must  be  measured 


08  Practical  Measurement  of  Psychopathic  Behavior 


in  units  of  time.  Many  other  methods  of  comparison  have  been 
offered,  chiefly  in  the  study  of  mental  phenomena,  but  none 
have  claimed  more  than  a  few  straggling  followers,  and  in  the 
meantime  there  has  grown  up  practically  a  crude  but  healthy 
mass  of  material  based  upon  the  day  as  the  unit.  It  is  this 
material  at  hand  which  only  needs  polishing  and  finishing  to 
become  a  powerful  tool  in  our  attack  upon  the  intricacies  of  the 
psychopathic  mind. 

In  all  State  Hospitals  which  have  become  more  than  asylums 
in  deed  as  well  as  in  name,  there  are  notes  made  periodically  on 
the  mental  condition  of  each  patient.  This  work  is  supple- 
mented in  our  best  Hospitals  by  the  institution  of  a  sort  of  con- 
duct chart  which  is  a  daily  record  of  the  abnormal  behavior  of 
each  patient.  This  chart  is  kept  by  the  nurse  on  the  ward  and 
is  turned  in  with  the  rest  of  the  patient's  records  when  he  is 
discharged  from  the  Hospital.  This  is  a  crude  but  practical 
method  of  recording  conduct  on  a  large  scale  and  it  is  a  funda- 
mentally correct  method,  however  crude,  because  it  has  a  time 
element  for  comparison,  namely  the  day.  What  needs  polishing 
is  our  conception  of  the  acts  that  really  constitute  abnormal 
behavior  and  secondly,  the  training  which  we  mental  internists 
give  our  nurses. 

We  must  submit  to  a  bit  of  self-discipline  in  order  to  be 
able  to  know  when  an  act  is  abnormal  and  to  a  great  deal  more 
than  a  bit  of  self-discipline  in  order  to  tell  what  is  really  behavior 
and  what  in  behavior  contains  elements  of  interpretation.  We 
must  know  these  differences  so  well  that  we  can  teach  them  to 
our  nurses  in  simple  language. 

In  determining  the  abnormal  nature  of  a  certain  incident  of 
behavior,  one  deals  with  durations,  intensities,  and  discrepancies 
between  cause  and  effect.  In  determining  what  is  really  be- 
havior, one  must  keep  in  mind  the  two  degrees  of  observation, 
the  first  degree  taking  cognizance  only  of  the  objective  symptom 
and  the  second  degree  introducing  an  element  of  interpretation 
into  the  act  of  the  patient  as  seen  by  the  observer.  The  first 
degree  of  observation  is  the  only  one  to  be  relied  upon  in  making 
an  evaluation  of  an  act,  because  it  takes  the  objective  symptom 
without  any  element  of  interpretation.4  Present  conduct  charts 
are  imperfect  without  exception  because  they  ignore  this  differ- 
ence and  hence  they  do  not  bring  back  a  true  report  of  the  be- 

4Harold  I.  Gosline— The  Conduct  of  the  Insane— J.  Abn.  Psychol—  Vol.  XII,  No.  4,  p.  240, 
October,  1917. 


H.  I.  Goeline,  69 

havior  of  the  patient  and,  what  is  of  greater  import,  they  cloud 
the  vision  of  the  observer,  the  nurse,  by  forcing  her  to  interpret 
the  acts  of  the  patient.  We  can  not  over-emphasize  the  value 
of  the  nurse  in  this  work.  Her  work  is  essential  because  it  is 
practical  and  it  will  become  more  practical  when  the  necessary 
instruction  is  added  to  the  curriculum  of  the  nurse  in  the  mental 
hospital,  to  replace  what  is  now  taught  of  the  groupings  of  mental 
disease.  These  groupings  of  mental  disease  are  too  complicated 
and  too  incomprehensible  to  the  average  mental  nurse;  they  are 
more  fitted  to  the  work  of  the  doctor.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
study  of  behavior,  if  direct  observation  is  taught,  can  become 
easy  of  comprehension  and  is  a  fit  object  for  the  report  of  the 
nurse. 

Who  in  general  medicine  would  think  of  attempting  to  teach 
the  intricacies  of  the  nephroses  or  the  vagaries  of  the  neuro- 
cardiac  asthenia  to  his  nurses?  It  is  just  as  little  good  sense  to 
try  to  teach  mental  nurses  the  uncertainties  of  the  differential 
diagnosis  between  manic-depressive  psychosis  and  dementia 
precox.  Substitute  something  practical  and  more  tangible  to 
the  humbler  understanding. 

And  so  to  summarize  the  problem  of  "measuring  psycho- 
pathic behavior  practically,"  let  us  recapitulate — a  time  unit, 
a  clear  idea  of  what  is  psychopathic,  a  description  of  behavior, 
and  a  nurse  with  a  practical  training. 

With  these  elements  we  may  present  the  results  tangibly, 
accurately,  and  practically.  (See  Chart)  Two  methods  of 
presentation  have  been  chosen  for  the  time  being;  one  may  be 
called  the  ''graphic  presentation,"  the  other  the  "comparative 
presentation."  In  the  graphic  method  of  presentation,  the 
ordinates  are  the  numbers  of  the  months  of  the  year,  the  ab- 
scissae are  the  number  of  days  of  the  month  during  which  a  given 
act  of  behavior  persisted.  The  resulting  graph  represents  the 
symptom  under  observation.  Let  us  take  restlessness  for  ex- 
ample. On  the  chart  (upper  figure)  it  is  apparent  that  the 
patient  was  restless  during  thirty  days  of  the  first  month  of  the 
year  1898  which  was  the  second  year  of  her  disease;  and  so  on. 
It  is  apparent,  also,  that  this  method  permits  of  graphic  com- 
parison with  other  symptoms,  as  noisiness,  for  example,  (see 
chart),  with  variations  in  weight  or,  in  general,  with  any  other 
function,  since  functions  must  be  measured  in  time  units. 

A  comparative  presentation  may  also  be  effected  by  using 
numbers  instead  of  the  graph.  (Chart,  lower  part).  Thus 


70 


Practical  Measurement  of  Psychopathic  Behavior 


larger  groups  of  symptoms  may  be  compared  at  once  or  the 
symptoms  may  be  compared  in  the  various  psychoses  or  the  same 
symptom  may  be  studied  in  a  series  of  individuals.  The  method 
is  bound  only  by  the  limitation  inherent  in  comparisons  which  are 
referable  to  time  as  a  standard. 

The  closer  we  approach  the  ideals  outlined  above,  the  nearer 
do  we  come  to  an  actual  measurement  of  neuromuscular  excite- 
ment involved  in  the  act  of  behavior  under  observation.  Of 
course,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  this  observation  of  behavior 
is  giving  us  any  insight  into  which  side  of  the  reflex  arc  is  suffering. 
Such  information  must  be  obtained  by  the  mental  examination 
proper  or  by  a  study  of  the  physical  condition  of  the  patient. 
But  what  we  do  obtain  is  an  exact  idea  of  the  segments  of  the 
brain  and  cord  which  are  discharging  and,  of  still  more  value,  we 
know  something  of  the  comparative  activity  of  the  various  seg- 
ments. Thus,  in  the  lower  part  of  the  chart,  it  was  the  neuro- 
muscular apparatus  subserving  the  voice  which  was  most  active 
during  the  fourth  month  of  1900  and  this  took  the  direction  of 
abusiveness  and  profanity.  At  another  time  it  was  the  lachry- 


H.  /.  Gosline 


71 


mal  apparatus  plus  the  voice  in  profanity.  And  the  entire 
course  of  this  patient's  behavior  was  exteriorized  in  the  head 
segments  of  the  cord  or,  perhaps,  in  the  head  area  of  the  brain 
except  at  the  end  of  the  disease  when  the  activity  of  these  seg- 
ments subsided  and  the  lower  segments  of  the  cord,  or  the  upper 
areas  of  the  brain,  or  possibly  areas  in  the  thalamus,  became  ac- 
tive, as  evidenced  in  the  patient's  untidiness.  At  the  same  time 
the  gastro-intestinal  system  was  upset. 

In  concluding,  it  may  be  emphasized  again  that  the  method 
is  practical  now  and  can  be  made  more  so.  An  example  of  the 
interpretation  of  the  figures  and  how  to  compile  the  figures  has 
been  given.  The  method  is  not  new;  it  is  only  an  extension  of 
what  is  being  done  now  in  Hospitals  for  the  insane  where  scien- 
tific work  is  being  attempted.  The  adoption  of  this  method  makes 
for  clear  thinking  by  insisting  ori  a  clear  comprehension  of  real 
differences  which  exist  between  behavior  in  the  true  sense  and 


72  Practical  Measurement  of  Psychopathic  Behavior 

what  is  often  erroneously  termed  behavior.  Finally,  it  is  a  step 
in  a  rational  plan  of  psychoanalysis;  the  sort  of  psychoanalysis 
that  is  trying  to  arrive  at  the  seat  of  the  patient's  trouble  in  his 
own  body. 

Just  now  we  must  be  content  to  leave  it  to  future  researches 
to  reveal  the  total  possibilities  of  discharge  of  the  sensory  system 
into  the  paths  observed  to  be  acting  when  we  study  behavior. 
But  with  the  advent  of  this  knowledge,  we  shall  locate  the  seat 
of  the  pathological  condition  in  the  mental  case  from  the  symp- 
toms, in  the  same  ideal  way  attempted,  but  never  quite  reached, 
by  our  confreres  in  general  medicine. 


HYPNAGOGIC  HALLUCINATIONS  WITH  CASES 
ILLUSTRATING  THESE  SANE  MANIFESTATIONS1 

N.    S.    YAWGER,    M.    D..    PHILADELPHIA 

IN  medical  writings  it  is  seldom  that  more  than  mention  is 
made  of  sane  hallucinations,  though  they  are  not  of  such 
uncommon  occurrence  and  occasionally  we  are  consulted  as 
to  their  significance.  From  Bible-times  down  there  always 
have  been  persons  who  beheld  visions  and  history  records  many 
instances  where  men  of  genius  have  had  either  a  single  halluci- 
natory experience  or  have  been  subject  to  their  occasional  re- 
appearance. 

Hypnagogic  phenomena  were  first  studied  and  so  named 
by  the  French  psychologist,  Maury  (1);  subsequently,  the  matter 
was  given  consideration  by  Kraepelin  (2),  and  in  this  country  it 
is  mentioned  by  White  (3)  but  for  the  most  part  the  subject  has 
been  left  to  psychologists. 

These  curious  experiences  are  familiarly  known  as  visions, 
and,  though  innocent  in  their  nature,  might  be  mistaken  as 
heralding  some  grave  mental  disorder.  In  discussing  the  sub- 
ject some  writers  have  included  phenomena  of  the  special  senses 
manifested  upon  wakening;  the  derivation  of  the  word  hypna- 
gogic  prohibits  this,  and,  furthermore,  while  experiences  pre- 
ceding sleep  are  mostly  visual,  those  occurring  upon  wakening 
are  more  likely  to  be  associated  with  hearing. 

By  hypnagogic  phenomena,  hallucinations  or  visions,  we 
understand  those  experiences,  usually  optical,  of  a  few  sane 
persons,  observed  during  the  transitional  stage  from  wakening 
to  slumber  and  in  which  scenes  or  objects  of  various  kinds  pass 
rapidly  before  the  sight.  While  in  some  individuals  such  hal- 
lucinations are  observed  with  the  eyes  closed,  in  others  they  are 
seen  with  them  open. 

The  character  of  the  visions  vary;  at  times  they  assume 
architectural  forms,  they  may  be  of  streets  or  of  interior  decora- 
tions and  in  other  experiences  persons  are  represented  either 
singly  or  in  groups.  These  recurring  scenes  are  likely  to  be  more 
or  less  of  a  similar  character  in  each  individual. 

'Read  before  the  American  Neurological  Association  at  the  Forty-fourth  Annual  Meet- 
ing, A  Han' ir  City.  My,  1   18. 

73 


74  Hypnagogic  Hallucinations 

Case  1.  A  female,  aged  72,  long  a  sufferer  from  chronic 
rheumatic  arthritis  but  whose  hallucinatory  experiences  ante- 
dates her  invalidism.  The  visions  were  first  manifested  at  40 
years,  since  then  not  oftener  than  once  in  two  or  three  years  and 
still  less  often  of  recent  years.  The  sights  appear  only  upon  re- 
tiring and  always  with  the  eyes  closed.  They  are  of  no  particu- 
lar type — Scenes  from  nature,  different  patterns  of  lace  and  some- 
times human-  heads  with  distorted  features.  Once,  this  in- 
dividual recalls  seeing  a  castle  with  doors  standing  open.  It 
appeared  to  her  that  she  entered  the  structure  and  walked  along 
a  wide  corridor  and  into  a  number  of  large  vacant  rooms. 

Case  11.  This  is  of  a  gentlewoman,  aged  47,  of  unusual 
intelligence  and  in  exceptional  health.  Her  own  statement  fol- 
lows: The  visions  appeared  first  at  about  15  years  and  have 
been  continuous  ever  since  at  longer  or  shorter  intervals.  Some- 
times they  appear  for  several  consecutive  nights  and  then  remain 
away  for  months  at  a  time. 

So  far  as  I  can  judge  they  are  not  more  likely  to  be  with  me 
when  I  am  overtired  or  disturbed  in  mind.  I  exercise  no  con- 
trol over  them  as  I  have  repeatedly  endeavored  to  recall  the 
sights  but  without  success;  again,  when  I  least  expect  them  they 
appear,  though  never  until  after  having  retired.  In  character 
they  are  panoramic,  one  scene  appearing  for  a  few  seconds  to  be 
followed  a  moment  later  by  a  vision  entirely  different.  I  regard 
their  development  with  great  interest  and  enjoyment.  At  times 
when  others  have  been  in  my  rooms  I  have  been  pleased  to  en- 
tertain them  with  descriptions  of  these  visions  as  they  appeared 
one  by  one.  Though  my  eyes  are  closed,  I  know  I  am  fully 
awake,  else  how  could  I  describe  the  sights  accurately  at  the 
time  and  furthermore  ha-ve  the  power  of  recalling  them  long 
after? 

My  experiences  are  almost  invariably  of  a  pleasant  nature 
and  through  many  years  there  have  been  but  fewr  instances  when 
I  have  met  with  decidedly  unpleasant  sights.  These  experiences 
are  not  the  projected  images  of  things  previously  seen  or  read 
but  seem  an  entirely  newr  creation.  To  me  a  singular  feature  is 
that  the  visions  are  invariably  void  of  life — Never  a  living 
creature  nor  the  image  of  one — All  is  so  deserted  and  still. 

As  to  the  subjects  of  these  visions:  They  are  sceneries  from 
nature  of  various  kinds,  streets  where  I  see  rows  of  houses  mostly 
of  dark  brown  sandstone  and  of  stately  architecture,  hand- 
some rooms  with  beautiful  furnishings  and  hangings,  all  of 


A7.  8.  Yawger  75 

gorgeous  hue  and  wondrous  design.  When  I  distinctly  see  in- 
teriors, patterns  of  tapestries  and  decorations,  they  are  usually 
in  oriental  style.  Most  all  I  see  is  so  beautiful  that  I  long  for  the 
power  to  reproduce  it  in  reality. 

Once,  I  vividly  recall  that  suddenly  there  appeared  lying 
upon  a  highly  polished  round-top  table  of  about  two  feet  in 
diameter  and  within  easy  reach  of  my  hand,  a  jewel,  of  oval 
shape  and  about  four  inches  in  its  greatest  length.  This  jewel 
was  a  most  beautiful,  rich,  shining  topaz,  set  in  a  golden  scroll 
and  in  the  center  was  a  jet-black  pulsating  star.  Soon  the 
whole  scene  vanished  from  my  sight. 

More  frequent  but  less  elaborate  experiences  are  with  me 
as  I  waken.  These  are  usually  associated  with  hearing  and  con- 
sist for  the  most  part  of  jabbering,  incoherent  words  or  snatches 
from  sentences.  A  recent  instance  of  this  kind  was  my  distinctly 
catching  these  words,  "I  paid  my  million  dollar  debt  to  E.  P. 
Andre. "  To  me  these  words  are  always  meaningless  since  I  can 
associate  them  with  nothing  in  my  past  life. 

In  the  latter  case  cited  the  visions  began  at  15  years  and  in 
the  former  at  -40.  This,  according  to  Steen  (4),  is  unusual.  In 
speaking  of  such  manifestations  he  says,  "These  are  more 
marked  in  youth  and  as  a  rule  disappear  when  adult  life  is  reach- 
ed." He  quotes  DeQuincy  who  wrote,  "I  know  not  whether 
my  reader  is  aware  that  many  children  have  a  power  as  it  were 
of  painting  upon  the  darkness  all  sorts  of  phantoms;  in  some 
that  power  is  simply  a  mechanical  affection  of  the  eye;  others 
have  a  voluntary  or  semi-voluntary  power  to  dismiss  or  summon 
such  phantoms;  or,  as  a  child  once  said  to  me  when  I  questioned 
him  about  this  matter,  'I  can  tell  them  to  go,  and  they  go,  but 
sometimes  they  come  when  I  don't  tell  them  to  come.' 

These  manifestations  do  not  have  their  origin  in  peripheral 
disturbances,  they  have  been  perceived  in  persons  blind  and 
deaf.  Individuals  having  such  experiences  may  be  physically 
healthy  and  entirely  sane.  The  phenomenon  is  just  a  state  of 
mind  and  probably  as  far  removed  from  disease  or  disorder  as  is 
dreaming. 

One  finds  among  psychologists  various  theories  accounting 
for  hypnagogic  hallucinations.  In  some  general  discussion  of 
analogous  states  James  says,  "Whenever  the  associative  pro- 
cesses are  reduced  and  impelled  by  the  approach  of  uncon- 
sciousness, as  in  falling  sleep,  or  growing  faint  or  in  becoming 


76  Hypnagogic  Hallucinations 

narcotized,  we  find  a  concomitant  increase  in  the  intensity  of 
whatsoever  partial  consciousness  may  remain." 

As  to  theories  regarding  hypnagogic  phenomena — Some 
have  considered  them  due  to  shutting  off  the  drainage  through 
association  paths,  thereby  making  more  intense  the  activity  of 
those  cells  that  retain  any  activity,  until  finally  the  accumula- 
tion is  so  great  that  a  sensory  explosion  occurs  in  the  form  of  a 
vision. 

Another  theory  lays  stress  upon  the  approach  of  drowsiness, 
at  which  time  the  sensations  cease,  consequently,  we  have  an 
absence  of  their  reductive  power;  in  other  words,  the  channels 
of  comparison  being  shut  off,  there  is  in  operation  no  toning 
down  process  and  thus  the  imaginary  sights  are  permitted  to 
spring  into  existence  unopposed. 

1.  Maury,  L.  F.  Alfred:  Le  Sommeil  et  les    Reves;   Libraire 

Academeque  et  Cie,  Libraires-Editeurs,  Paris,  1861,  p.  41. 

2.  Kraepelin,    Emil:    Psychiatric;    Johann   Ambrosius    Barth, 

Leipzig;     1.     Band,  p.  130,  1903. 

3.  White,  William  A.:  Outlines  of  Psychiatry;  Nervous  and 

Mental  Disease  Publishing  Company,  Washington;  1918, 
p.  45. 

4.  Steen,    Robert   Hunter:   Hallucinations   in   the   Sane;   The 

Journal  of  Mental  Disease;  July,  1917,  p.  328. 

5.  James,   William:   Psychology,   Henry  Holt    and   Company, 

New  York:  Vol.  II,  1890/p.  124. 


POINT  SCALE  EXAMINATIONS1  ON  THE  HIGH- 
GRADE    FEEBLE-MINDED    AND    THE 
INSANE 

BY    JOSEPHINE    N.    CURTIS,    PH.    D. 

PSYCHOLOGIST  IN   CHARGE,  PSYCHOPATHIC  HOSPITAL,  BOSTON 

IN  February,  1916,  when  we  began  the  investigation  here  re- 
ported,2 to  our  knowledge  no  extensive  use  of  the  Yerkes- 
Bridges  Child  (pre-adolescent)  Point  Scale  had  been  made 
with  subjects  at  the  border-line  of  feeble-mindedness.3  We 
were  concerned  to  determine  as  accurately  as  possible  the  intel- 
lectual level  reached  by  individuals  who  had  proven  that  they 
were  just  unable  to  get  along  by  themselves  in  the  world,  and  to 
ascertain  for  these  cases  the  range  of  variation  in  intellectual 
ability.  We  wished,  secondly,  to  obtain  data  for  comparison 
with  ratings  already  obtained  on  the  same  subjects  by  the  use 
of  the  Goddard  1911  revision  of  the  Binet  tests,4  and  to  ascertain 
the  diagnostic  significance,  at  the  upper  ages  of  the  individual 
tests  on  the  Point  Scale.  As  work  progressed,  it  became  in- 
creasingly evident  that  the  child  scale  was  unsuitable  for  our 
purposes  in  some  cases,  since  with  it  our  highest  grade  subjects 
attained  scores  equal  to  those  of  normal  subjects.  This  out- 
come indicated  that  not  enough  difficult  tests  were  included  in 
the  scale  to  give  chances  for  the  subnormals  to  display  their 
inferiority.  Accordingly  we  gave  the  preliminary  form  of  the 
Yerkes-Rossy  Adult  Point  Scale5  to  about  thirty  subjects  who 
received  high  scores  on  the  child  scale. 

Our  subjects  were  100  boys  and  100  girls  at  the  Massa- 
chusetts School  for  the  Feeble-Minded  at  Waverley.     There  are 

'The  directions  for  grading  given  by  Yerkes,  Bridges,  and  Hardwick,  A  Point  Scale  for 
Measuring  Menial  Ability,  1915,  proved  too  meagre  for  our  work  and  we  have  therefore  made  a 
more  detailed  list  of  typical  answers  and  their  evaluation.  This  list  is  now  in  use  in  the  Psycho- 
pathic Hospital,  Boston  and  is  given  in  Appendix  B  of  this  paper. 

2The  problem  of  the  applicability  of  the  Point  Scale  to  the  high  grade  feeble-minded  was 
suggested  by  Major  II.  M.  Yerkes.  To  him,  to  Dr.  \V.  E.  Fernald  and  Dr.  K.  MaU-er  of  Waverley 
and  to  Dr.  E.  E.  Southard  of  the  Psychopathic  Hospital  grateful  acknowledgments  are  due  for 
valuable  suggestions  and  criticisms. 

3The  report  of  T.  H.  Haines,  Ohio  Hoard  of  Administration,  Pub.  7,  Dec.  191.5  had  not  reached 
us.  Compare  also  It.  M.  Yerkes  and  L.  Wood,  Journ.  Ed.  Pxych.  7,  Dec.,  191(5. 

'II.  II.  (Jcddard,  reprint  (1911)  from  Training  School,  January,  1910. 

5 A  brief  account  of  the  nature  of  this  scale  and  of  our  results  with  it  are  given  by  \\.  M. 
Yerkes  ami  C.  S.  Rossy,  Boston  Med.  and  Surg.  Journ.  176,  No.  10,  April  19,  1917,  p.  509  ff. 
Certain  other  results  follow  in  this  paper. 

77 


78 


Point  Scale  Examinations 


no  spastics,  Cretins,  Mongolians,  microcephalies  or  hydro- 
cephalics  in  the  group.  Negroes  are  designated  in  the  tables  by 
parentheses.  With  scarcely  any  exceptions  our  group  contained 
all  of  the  high  grade  girls  at  the  school.  There  are  68  whose 
mental  ages  are  9  or  over.6  Most  of  the  high  grade  boys  at  the 
school  were  also  examined,  though  some  few  could  not  well  be" 
taken  from  their  work  on  the  farm.  Our  cases,  however,  in- 
cluded 70  boys  of  9  years  mental  age  and  over.  For  the  rest, 
the  groups  are  made  up  chiefly  of  boys  and  girls  of  slightly  lower 
mental  ages  whom  it  was  necessary  to  examine  to  make  sure 
they  were  really  below  9,  together  with  a  few  at  much  lower  ages 
for  the  sake  of  certain  comparisons.  The  median  chronological 
age  of  the  boys  examined  was  16  +  a  median  variation  of  2;  of 
the  girls,  24  +3.  The  median  chronological  age  of  the  70  high 
grade  boys  was  16  2;  of  the  68  high  grade  girls,  24  +4.  All  of- 
the  cases  had  been  tested  at  the  school  less  than  two  years  before 
by  Goddard's  revisipn  of  the  Binet  tests.  The  following  facts 
make  it  probable  that  for  many  purposes  we  may  make  compari- 
sons between  the  results  of  the  two  scales  without  significant 
errors  due  to  lapse  of  time  between  the  giving  of  the  two  sets  of 
tests:  1)  The  median  chronological  ages  of  our  lower  grade  and 
of  our  higher  grade  groups  are  identical.  2)  The  Binet  measure- 
ments give  -65  boys  and  70  girls  with  mental  age  over  9  as  com- 
pared with  70  and  68  by  the  Point  Scale.  3)  Many  of  our  group 
are  adults  and  therefore  probably  not  developing. 

TABLE  I 

POINT  SCALE  AND  BINET  DATA  UPON  200  FEEBLE-MINDBD 

BOYS 


CHILD  POINT  SCALE  —  MENTAL  AGE 


Child  Point  Scale 
mental  age 


' 

I.  Q. 


i 
2 
3 
4 
5 

'Except  when  otherwise  indicated,  the  corrected  norms  of  Yerkes  and  Wood,  op.  cit.,  606, 
are  used  in  all  computation  in  this  paper. 


22 

21 

4.8 

4.9 

6.6 

24 

31 

41 

-1.7 

17 

29 

6.0 

6.2 

7.6 

34 

38 

48 

-1.4 

24 

32 

6.5 

6.6 

6.4 

36 

41 

40 

.2 

15 

36 

7.2 

7.2 

7.0 

45 

48 

47 

.2 

10 

38 

7.5 

7.5 

8.2 

67 

75 

82 

-.7 

Josephine  N.  Curtis  79 


6 

11. 

5 

39 

7.  7 

7.6 

7.2 

58 

65 

63 

4 

7 

15 

40 

7.8 

7.7 

8.2 

49 

51 

48 

5 

8 

10 

40 

7.8 

7.7 

9.0 

70 

77 

90 

-1. 

3 

9 

20 

40 

7.8 

7.  7 

8.6 

45 

48 

54 

_  . 

9 

10 

17 

41 

8.0 

7.8 

7.0 

48 

49 

44 

8 

11 

16 

42 

8.1 

8.0 

7.8 

50 

51 

49 

t7 

12 

22 

42 

8.1 

8.1 

7.8 

49 

51 

49 

3 

13 

11. 

!) 

44 

8.2 

8.2 

7.8 

69 

69 

66 

4 

14 

18 

44 

8.2 

8.2 

9.0 

50 

51 

56 

_  . 

8 

15 

14 

44 

8.2 

8.2 

9.4 

56 

58 

57 

-1. 

2 

16 

11. 

.2 

44 

8.2 

8.2 

8.0 

68 

73 

71 

3 

17 

29 

44 

8.2 

8.2 

9.0 

50 

51 

56 

_  . 

8 

18 

17 

45 

8.3 

8.4 

9.0 

52 

52 

56 

_  . 

6 

19 

10. 

7 

45 

8.3 

8.4 

8.0 

73 

78 

75 

_  . 

4 

20 

12. 

1 

46 

8.3 

8.5 

9.2 

66 

70 

76 

—  . 

7 

(21) 

16 

46 

8.3 

8.5 

7.0 

55 

53 

44 

1 

5 

22 

15 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

8.4 

57 

57 

56 

2 

23 

11. 

."> 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

8.2 

72 

76 

71 

6 

24 

14. 

.2 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

8.2 

61 

62 

58 

6 

25 

20 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

9.0 

55 

55 

56 

—  , 

2 

26 

33 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

8.2 

55 

55 

51 

6 

27 

17 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

10.0 

56 

55 

63 

-1 

g 

28 

14. 

5 

49 

8.5 

8.9 

9.2 

61 

61 

63 

— 

3 

29 

15 

49 

8.5 

8.9 

8.0 

61 

59 

53 

.9 

30 

12 

49 

8.5 

8.9 

9.8 

70 

74 

82 

— 

.9 

(31) 

14 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

10.0 

64 

64 

71 

-1 

0 

32 

13. 

,7 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

9.0 

65 

66 

66 

0 

(33) 

19 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

8.0 

57 

56 

50 

1 

.0 

34 

21 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

9.4 

57 

56 

59 

— 

.4 

35 

16 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

8.2 

61 

58 

51 

1 

.0 

36 

15 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

8.0 

61 

57 

53 

1 

2 

37 

15 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

8.6 

63 

61 

57 

.0 

38 

14 

5 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

8.0 

64 

63 

55 

1 

.2 

39 

15 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

9.6 

62 

61 

64 

— 

.4 

40 

17 

51 

8.7 

9.2 

9.4 

61 

57 

59 

— 

.2 

41 

13 

,7 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

8.0 

63 

63 

58 

1 

.3 

42 

17 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

9.2 

60 

58 

58 

.1 

(43) 

16 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

9.4 

63 

60 

59 

— 

.1 

44 

15 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

9.2 

63 

61 

61 

.1 

45 

14. 

7 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

8.0 

64 

63 

54 

1 

.8 

46 

12 

5 

53 

8.8 

9.5 

9.6 

74 

76 

77 

— 

.1 

47 

16 

53 

8.8 

9.5 

8.4 

63 

59 

53 

1 

.1 

(48) 

13. 

5 

53 

8.8 

9.5 

9.2 

70 

70 

68 

.  i> 

49 

10 

8 

53 

8.8 

9.5 

8.2 

90 

92 

80 

1 

.3 

.>() 

21 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

8.6 

63 

61 

54 

1 

.1 

51 

13 

54 

8.9 

9.6 

9.4 

73 

74 

72 

.2 

52 

17 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

9.8 

64 

61 

61 

— 

.1 

53 

15 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

9.2 

63 

65 

61 

.  5 

54 

23 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

9.6 

63 

61 

60 

.1 

55 

81 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

8.8 

63 

61 

55 

9 

80  Point  Scale  Examinations 


56 

11.4 

56 

9.0 

9.9 

8.6 

85 

87 

75 

1.3 

57 

45 

56 

9.0 

9.9 

9.0 

64 

62 

56 

.9 

58 

23 

57 

9.  2 

10.0 

10.6 

65 

63 

66 

-.6 

59 

16 

57 

9.2 

10.0 

10.2 

68 

63 

64 

-.2 

60 

17 

57 

9.2 

10.0 

9.4 

66 

63 

59 

.6 

61 

12 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

9.6 

83 

84 

80 

.  5 

62 

15 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

9.2 

72 

67 

61 

.9 

63 

16 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

8.6 

69 

63 

54 

1.5 

64 

15 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

9.0 

72 

67 

ao 

1.1 

65 

18 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

10.2 

66 

63 

64 

-.1 

66 

40 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

9.0 

66 

63 

56 

1.1 

67 

18 

59 

9.5 

10.3 

10.0 

67 

64 

63 

.3 

68 

14.5 

59 

9.5 

10.3 

9.0 

74 

71 

62 

1.3 

69 

18 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

10.2 

68 

65 

64 

.2 

70 

20 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

8.8 

68 

65 

55 

1.6 

71 

17 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

9.0 

70 

65 

56 

1.4 

72 

11.9 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

8.2 

82 

87 

69 

2.2 

73 

15 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

9.2 

74 

69 

61 

1.2 

74 

14 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

10.0 

73 

75 

71 

.5 

(75) 

12 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

10.0 

87 

88 

83 

.  5 

76 

27 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

10.0 

69 

66 

63 

.5 

77 

15 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

9.8 

75 

70 

65 

.7 

78 

16 

63 

10.3 

10.8 

10.2 

75 

68 

64 

.6 

(79) 

17 

63 

10.3 

10.8 

9.2 

73 

68 

58 

1.6 

80 

19 

64 

10.7 

11.0 

10.6 

73 

69 

66 

.4 

81 

20 

64 

10.7 

11.0 

9.8 

74 

69 

61 

1.2 

82 

15 

64 

10.7 

11.0 

9.4 

79 

73 

63 

1.6 

83 

20 

65 

11.0 

11.2 

10.4 

74 

70 

65 

.8 

84 

23 

65 

11.0 

11.2 

9.4 

74 

70 

59 

1.8 

85 

18 

65 

11.0 

11.2 

10.2 

74 

70 

64 

1.0 

86 

16 

65 

11.0 

11.2 

10.0 

77 

70 

63 

1.2 

87 

15 

67 

11.2 

11.5 

9.4 

83 

77 

63 

2.1 

88 

16 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

11.2 

81 

73 

63 

.  5 

89 

21 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

10.8 

77 

73 

70 

.9 

90 

14 

70 

11.4 

12.1 

10.6 

90 

86 

68 

1.5 

91 

15 

70 

11.4 

12.1 

10.2 

86 

81 

68 

1.9 

92 

13.5 

70 

11.4 

12.1 

9.2 

92 

90 

68 

2.9 

(93) 

17 

72 

11.6 

12.5 

9.4 

84 

78 

59 

3.1 

(94) 

18 

72 

11.6 

12.5 

10.4 

82 

78 

65 

2.1 

95 

17 

75 

11.8 

13.2 

10.0 

87 

82 

63 

3.2 

96 

14 

75 

11.8 

13.2 

11.0 

96 

94 

79 

2.2 

97 

16 

79 

13.0 

14.2 

10.6 

94 

89 

66 

3.6 

98 

17 

81 

14.0 

14.9 

10.0 

94 

93 

63 

4.9 

99 

16 

82 

15.0 

15.2 

10.4 

98 

95 

65 

4.8 

100 

18 

93 

15.  + 

18.  + 

12.0 

106 

113 

75 

6.0  + 

Josephine  N.  Curtis  81 


GIRLS 

101 

23 

22 

5.0 

5.0 

6.4 

25 

31 

40 

-1.4 

102 

15 

25 

5.4 

5.5 

5.8 

25 

37 

39 

-.3 

103 

13 

27 

5.7 

5.9 

6.6 

27 

38 

51 

—  .7 

104 

23 

27 

5.7 

5.9 

7.2 

31 

37 

45 

-1.3 

105 

32 

28 

5.9 

6.0 

6.8 

32 

38 

43 

-.8 

106 

19 

28 

5.9 

6.0 

6.8 

32 

38 

43 

-.8 

107 

33 

28 

5.9 

6.0 

7.4 

32 

38 

46 

-1.4 

108 

29 

30 

6.2 

6.3 

7.8 

34 

39 

49 

-1.5 

109 

21 

33 

6.8 

6.8 

7.6 

38 

43 

48 

-.8 

110 

26 

33 

6.8 

6.8 

8.8 

38 

43 

55 

-2.0 

111 

26 

34 

6.8 

6.9 

8.4 

39 

43 

53 

-1.5 

112 

24 

35 

7.0 

7.0 

8.2 

40 

44 

51 

-1.2 

113 

24 

35 

7.0 

7.0 

8.6 

40 

44 

54 

-1.6 

114 

20 

36 

7.2 

7.2 

6.8 

41 

45 

43 

.4 

115 

49 

38 

7.5 

7.5 

9.0 

43 

47 

56 

-1.5 

116 

24 

39 

7.7 

7.6 

7.8 

44 

48 

49 

-.2 

117 

25 

39 

7.7 

7.6 

8.4 

44 

48 

53 

-.8 

118 

26 

39 

7.7 

7.6 

8.4 

44 

48 

53 

-.8 

119 

19 

40 

7.8 

7.7 

8.4 

45 

48 

53 

-.7 

120 

25 

40 

7.8 

7.7 

7.0 

45 

48 

44 

.7 

121 

27 

43 

8.1 

8.1 

7.3 

49 

51 

45 

.9 

122 

34 

43 

8.1 

8.1 

8.4 

49 

51  . 

53 

-.3 

123 

23 

43 

8.1 

8.1 

8.0 

49 

51 

50 

.1 

124 

36 

45 

8.3 

8.4 

9.6 

51 

53 

60 

-1.2 

125 

14 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

7.8 

54 

54 

49 

.8 

126 

57 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

8.6 

54 

54 

54 

0 

127 

20 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

9.0 

54 

54 

56 

-.4 

128 

25 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

8.2 

54 

54 

51 

.4 

129 

20 

47 

8.4 

8.6 

9.0 

54 

54 

56 

-.4 

130 

26 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

7.8 

55 

55 

49 

1.0 

131 

21 

48 

8.5 

8.8 

9.6 

55 

55 

60 

-.8 

132 

26 

49 

8.5 

8.9 

9.6 

56 

56 

60 

-.7 

133 

28 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

9.C 

57 

56 

56 

0 

134 

21 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

8.8 

57 

56 

55 

.2 

135 

18 

50 

8.6 

9.0 

9.2 

57 

56 

58 

-.2 

(136) 

19 

52 

8.7 

9.3 

8.2 

59 

58 

51 

1.1 

137 

27 

54 

8.9 

9.6 

10.2 

61 

60 

64 

-.6 

138 

16 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

10.4 

65 

61 

65 

-.7 

139 

33 

55 

8.9 

9.7 

10.2 

63 

61 

64 

—  .  5 

140 

21 

57 

9.2 

10.0 

10.6 

65 

63 

66 

-.6 

141 

24 

57 

9.2 

10.0 

8.6 

65 

63 

54 

1.4 

142 

26 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

10.2 

66 

63 

(54 

-.1 

143 

26 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

10.0 

66 

63 

63 

.1 

144 

19 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

9.6 

66 

63 

60 

.  5 

145 

30 

58 

9.3 

10.1 

10.0 

66 

63 

(53 

.1 

146 

27 

59 

9.5 

10.3 

9.8 

67 

(54 

(51 

.5 

147 

20 

59 

9.5 

10.3 

9.8 

67 

64 

61 

.5 

148 

25 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

9.0 

68 

65 

5(5 

1  .4 

149 

35 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

9.2 

68 

65 

(58 

1  .2 

82  Point  Scale  Examinations 


150 

29 

60 

9.7 

10.4 

9 

.0 

68 

65 

56 

1.4 

151 

17 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

10 

.4 

76 

66 

65 

.1 

* 

152 

22 

61 

9.8 

10.5 

10 

.0 

69 

66 

63 

.5 

153 

30 

62 

10.0 

10.7 

9 

.8 

70 

67 

61 

.9 

20 

154 

13.2 

62 

10.0 

10.7 

10 

.4 

.83 

81 

79 

.3 

155 

32 

62 

10.0 

10.7 

9 

.6 

70 

67 

60 

1.1 

166 

26 

63 

10.3 

10.8 

9 

.0 

72 

68 

56 

1  .8 

„ 

157 

25 

63 

10.3 

10.8 

9 

.2 

72 

68 

58 

1.6 

158 

24 

65 

11.0 

11.2 

10 

Q 

•  /-w 

74 

70 

64 

1  .0 

29 

159 

31 

66 

11.1 

11.4 

9 

.8 

75 

71 

61 

1.6 

160 

24 

66 

11.1 

11.4 

9 

.4 

75 

71 

59 

2.0 

161 

21 

67 

11.2 

11.5 

10 

.2 

76 

72 

64 

1.3 

162 

32 

67 

11.2 

11.5 

10 

.4 

76 

72 

65 

1.1 

163 

28 

67 

11.2 

11.5 

10 

.2. 

76 

72 

64 

1.3 

29 

164 

31 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

10 

.6 

77 

73 

66 

1.1 

165 

39 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

8 

.6 

77 

73 

54 

3.1 

166 

37 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

10 

.0 

77 

73 

63 

1.7 

18 

167 

23 

68 

11.3 

11.7 

11 

.0 

77 

73 

69 

.7 

168 

16 

69 

11.3 

11.9 

10 

.2 

82 

74 

64 

1.7 

169 

25 

69 

11.3 

11.9 

10 

.0 

78 

74 

63 

1.9 

32 

170 

24 

70 

11.4 

12.1 

11 

.2 

80 

76 

70 

1.1 

32 

171 

27 

70 

11.4 

12.1 

10 

.8 

80 

76 

68 

1.3 

172 

19 

71 

11.5 

12.3 

11 

.0 

81 

77 

69 

1.3 

26 

173 

22 

72 

11.6 

12.5 

11 

.0 

82 

78 

69 

1.5 

174 

31 

72 

11.6 

12.5 

10 

.6 

82 

78 

66 

1.9 

26 

175 

20 

72 

11.6 

12.5 

10 

.6 

82 

78 

66 

1.9 

33 

176 

23 

72 

1.1  .6 

12.5 

10 

.6 

82 

78 

66 

1.9 

40 

177 

21 

73 

11.7 

12.8 

10 

.2 

83 

80 

64 

2.6 

28 

178 

29 

73 

11.7 

12.8 

11 

.0 

83 

80 

69 

1.7 

36 

179 

26 

73 

11.7 

12.8 

10 

.6 

83 

80 

66 

2.2 

41 

180 

24 

73 

11.7 

12.8 

10 

.2 

83 

80 

64 

2.6 

40 

181 

17 

74 

11.8 

13.0 

10 

.6 

85 

81 

66 

2.4 

41 

182 

15.9 

77 

12.0 

13.7 

9 

.2 

93 

86 

58 

4.5 

32 

183 

21 

77 

12.0 

13.7 

9 

.2 

88 

86 

58 

4.5 

42 

184 

22 

79 

13.0 

14.2 

11 

.2 

90 

89 

70 

3.0 

42 

185 

25 

79 

13.0 

14.2 

11 

.2 

90 

89 

70 

3.0 

40 

186 

27 

79 

13.0 

14.2 

10 

.6 

90 

89 

66 

3.6 

27 

187 

25 

80 

13.5 

14.5 

11 

.2 

91 

90 

70 

3.3 

54 

188 

27 

80 

13.5 

14.5 

11 

.6 

91 

90 

73 

2.9 

32 

189 

32 

82 

15.0 

15.2 

11 

.0 

93 

95 

69 

4.2 

56 

190 

20 

83 

15.5 

15  .5 

10 

.6 

94 

97 

66 

4.9 

52 

191 

17 

83 

15.5 

15.5 

11 

.2 

98 

97 

70 

4.3 

47 

192 

17 

83 

15.5 

15.5 

10 

.4 

98 

97 

65 

5.1 

49 

193 

26 

84 

16.0 

16.0 

11 

.4 

97 

100 

71 

4.6 

41 

194 

16.8 

84 

16.0 

16.0 

11 

.0 

98 

100 

69 

5.0 

59 

(195) 

20 

85 

16.5 

16.3 

10 

.4 

97 

102 

65 

6.1 

47 

196 

33 

85 

16.5 

16.3 

10 

.8 

97 

102 

68 

5.5 

197 

21 

86 

17.0 

16.8 

11 

.6 

98 

105 

72 

5.2 

47 

198 

27 

89 

18.+ 

18.+ 

11 

.2 

101 

113 

70 

6.8  + 

44 

199 

22 

89 

18.+ 

18.+ 

11 

.4 

101 

113 

71 

6.6  + 

45 

200 

19 

92 

18.+ 

18.+ 

11 

.4 

105 

113 

71 

6.6  + 

•  54 

Josephine  N.  Curtis  83 

Table  I  presents  our  data.  In  the  succeeding  columns  are 
given:  1)  case  number;  2)  chronological  age;  3)  the  Child  Point 
Scale  score  (total  credits) ;  4)  the  mental  age  corresponding  to  the 
score,  according  to  original  norms;7  5)  the  mental  age  using  cor- 
rected norms;  6)  the  Binet  mental  age;  7)  the  coefficient  of 
intelligence  (attained  Point  Scale  score  divided  by  score  expected 
at  chronological  age,  adults  88  points,  18  years) ;  8)  the  Point 
Scale  Intelligence  quotient  (Point  Scale  mental  age  divided  by 
chronological  age,  adults  given  age  16);  9)  the  Binet  I  Q  (adult, 
16  years);  10)  the  difference  between  the  Point  Scale  age  and 
the  Binet  age;  11)  the  Adult  Point  Scale  score. 

That  the  distribution  of  cases  by  mental  age  is  noticeably 
different,  according  to  whether  old  or  new  norms  are  used  is 
evident  from  the  summary  given  by  Table  II  where  with  change 
from  old  to  new  norms  the  mode  of  the  total  distribution  moves 
two  years  upward,  8.0-8.9  to  10.0-10.9. 

TABLE  II 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  CASES  AT  VARIOUS  MENTAL  AGES 

4.0-  5.0-  6.0-  7.0-  8.0-  9.0-10.0-11.0- 

A  .9  5  .9  6  .9  7  .9  8  .9  9  .9       10  .9       11 .9 
Point  Scale: 

Old  norms   jl  7  6  15  65  35  10  38 

New  norms  jl  4  9  16  32  34          40          22 

Binet  0  1  7  18  39  61           54  19 

12.0-  13.0-  14.0-   15.0-   16.0-   17.0-   18.0  + 

12.9  13.9  14.9       15.9       16.9       17.9 

(or  15  +) 
Point  Scale : 

Old  norms       j  2  6  1  14 

New  norms  16  5  7  5  5  0  4 

Binet  1 

There  is  no  selective  factor  known  to  the  institution  authori- 
ties which  would  explain  the  relatively  small  number  of  cases 
at  10.0-10.9  (old  norms).  The  distribution  of  the  cases  by 
Binet  ages  shows  no  evidence  of  a  gap  at  or  near  this  age.  The 
gap  appears,  therefore,  to  be  due  to  the  incorrectness  of  the 
older  norms,  and  our  finding  that  this  gap  disappears  when  new 

7See  R.  M.  Yerkes,  J.  W.  Bridges,  and  R.  S.  Hardwick,  A  Point  Scale  for  Measuring  Mental 
Ability,  p. 


84  Point  Scale  Examinations 


norms  are  used  may  be  considered  a  further  justification  for  the 
use  of  the  new  norms  at  this  and  the  adjacent  ages. 

Forty -two  cases  with  mental  ages  above  12  (11  boys  and 
31  girls,  16%  and  46%,  respectively,  of  the  high  grade  groups) 
is  a  surprisingly  large  number.  In  the  case  of  the  girls  particu- 
larly, however,  it  should  be  noted  that  probably  about  half  of 
those  over  9  mentally  would  not  have  found  themselves  in  the 
institution  had  it  not  been  for  delinquencies.  Seven  of  the  31 
girls  have  definite  histories  of  delinquency.  One  also  is  probably 
psychotic.  Another,  a  negress  who  has  since  died,  had  the 
appearance  of  a  white  girl.  In  consequence  she  was  forced  when 
outside  the  institution  to  compete  with  white  requirements. 
She  would  not  under  more  natural  requirements  have  been 
called  feeble-minded.  Of  the  22  other  girls,  2  have  been  dis- 
charged, and  5  are  out  on  trial.  So  far  as  known  they  are  doing 
well  under  supervision.  The  remaining  15  are  still  at  the  school. 
Of  the  11  boys,  3  have  been  discharged.  One  of  these  is  now 
diagnosed  as  not  feeble-minded.  Two  others,  one  of  wThom  is 
diagnosed  probably  psychotic,  have  run  away.  Of  the  rest,  one 
is  temporarily  released,  one  has  just  been  allowed  to  leave  on 
trial,  one  has  been  on  trial  but  has  been  returned  unsuccessful, 
and  3  are  still  at  the  institution.  Thirteen  of  these  cases,  then, 
either  can  be  diagnosed  as  not  feeble-minded,  or  are  proving 
that  they  can  get  along  outside  the  institution  if  under  super- 
vision. Of  the  remaining  29  cases,  7  are  delinquent,  and  very 
likely  emotionally  rather  than  intellectually  defective,  leaving 
the  cases  unquestioned,  22.  The  probability  is  that  with  in- 
creasing years  a  few  more  will  be  discharged  or  let  out  on  trial. 
We  may  then  say  that  there  are  about  20  cases  in  our  group 
who  are  considered  feeble-minded,  and  \vho  give  a  mental  age 
of  over  12.  Since  our  work  was  done,  many  more  children  who 
do  not  belong  to  the  delinquent  group  and  who  have  mental 
ages  over  12  have  been  admitted  to  the  school.  It  is  therefore 
dangerous  to  say  that  all  persons  over  12  years  mental  age  are 
thereby  indicated  as  not  truly  feeble-minded.  It  is  also  danger- 
ous to  say  that  no  person  in  a  School  for  the  Feeble-minded  will 
ever  be  able  to  get  along  by  himself  in  the  world 

COMPARISON  OF  THE  C  I  AND  THE  I  Q 

The  diagnostic  value  of  the  coefficient  of  intelligence  and 
of  the  intelligence  quotient,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  mental 
age,  have  of  late  been  emphasized.  The  coefficient  of  intelli- 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  85 


gence  (C  I)  of  .70  has  been  placed  tentatively  as  the  "upper 
limit  of  inadequacy  or  inferiority"  below  which  individuals  are 
"socially  burdensome,  ineffective  and  usually  a  menace  to  social 
welfare,"  and  .70  to  .80  intelligence  quotient  (I  Q)  is  regarded 
as  characterizing  "borderline  deficiency,  often  classifiable  as 
feeble-mindedness "  and  below  .70  I  Q  as  "definite  feeble-minded- 

"8 

ness. 

We  give  in  Table  III  the  distribution  of  the  C  I's  and  I  Q's 
for  our  groups. 

TABLE  III 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  CASES  BY  C  I  AND  BY  I  Q 
C  I  (adult  88  points)  I  Q  (adult  16  years) 

Boys          Girls          Total  Boys          Girls          Total 

21-30  134  000 

31-40  3               10               13  2                 8               10 

41-50  8               10               18  4               12               16 

51-60  15               13               28  21               17               38 

61-70  31               17               48  43               20               68 

71-80  24               16               40  16               22               38 

81-90  12               16               28  99               18 

91-100  5               12               17  46               10 

101-  134  167 

From  Table  III  it  is  evident  that  the  use  of  the  C  I  gives  a 
greater  number  of  high  grades  than  does  the  I  Q  (89  vs.  73  cases 
above  .70).  Indeed,  according  to  the  C  I  rating,  21  cases  are 
classifiable  as  normal  or  supernormal,9  68  as  subnormal,  and  only 
111  cases  have  the  low  intelligence  of  the -feeble-minded.  If  we 
use  the  I  Q,  we  find  127  with  the  intelligence  of  the  feeble-minded, 
and  38  more  who  are  probably  feeble-minded,  18  who  are  dull  and 
probably  not  feeble-minded,  and  17  wrho  have  normal  intelligence. 
We  have  suggested  above  (p.  00)  that  some  of  the  children  at 
the  school  (perhaps  22)  may  be  classed  above  the  feeble-minded 
grade.  This  leaves  at  least  178  of  our  group  who  are  considered 
by  the  authorities  at  the  school  as  definitely  feeble-minded. 

'For  use  of  the  C  I  see  R.  M.  Yerkes  and  L.  M.  Wo«  d,  op.  c:t.,  pp.  602,  606.     For  ii.se  of 
the  I  Q,  see  L.  M.  Terman,  Measurement  of  Intelligence,  1916,  pp.  7!>,  H7ff. 
'See  Yerkes  and  Wood,  op.  cit.,  p.  601. 


86  Point  Scale  Examinations 


The  I  Q  expresses  this  fact  more  truly  than  does  the  C  I.  More- 
over, if  we  should  accept  a  .70  C  I  as  the  limit  of  feeble-minded- 
ness  this  would  imply  a  score  of  62  and  a  mental  age  of  10.0  as 
critical  in  adults.  This  limit  is  evidently,  therefore,  far  too  low. 

From  a  theoretical  point  of  view  there  seem  to  be  a  number 
of  arguments  in  favor  of  the  I  Q.  In  the  first  place  there  are 
more  chances  of  error  in  the  use  of  the  C  I  than  there  are  in  that 
of  the  I  Q.  Dr.  Yerkes  has  pointed  out10  that  "The  reliability 
of  the  quotient  depends  upon  several  variable  factors,  important 
among  which  are  the  accuracy  of  the  measurement  of  intelligence, 
and  the  trustworthiness  of  chronological  age."  This  must  also 
hold  true  for  the  C  I.  The  question  of  chronological  age  makes 
one  error  in  the  I  Q,  that  is,  it  may  change  the  divisor;  but  it 
makes  two  errors  in  the  C  I:  first,  the  given  age  may  be  wrong; 
second,  the  number  of  points  corresponding  to  that  age  may  be 
wrong. 

The  fact  that  the  gaining  of  a  point  at  the  higher  ages  means 
very  little  so  far  as  the  C  I  is  concerned  (n  and  ft  at  18 
show  the  slight  difference  .01  while  u  and  H  at  5  show  the 
much  larger  difference  .05)  together  with  greater  probability  of 
more  points  difference  at  5  implies  that  individuals  are  much 
more  alike  in  intelligence  at  18  than  the  same  individuals  were  at 
5.  This  difference  has  been  noticed  by  Yerkes  and  Wood  who 
state11  that  this  outcome  is  justified  by  application  of  the  scale. 
"The  results  make  it  appear  that  extraordinary  intellectual 
ability  is  fairly  common  up  to  8  years,  and  then  becomes  very 
uncommon."  It  would  seem  that  any  results  which  make  any 
such  astonishing  statement  seem  true,  must  be  questionable. 
The  authors,  to  be  sure,  state  that  "Evidently  .  .  .  the 
reliability  of  our  coefficient  and  its  value  for  purposes  of  com- 
parison are  conditioned  by  characteristics  of  range."  Now  if 
the  C  I  is  to  mean  different  things  at  different  ages,  then  it  has 
the  fault  that  is  found  with  the  statement  of  difference  between 
chronological  and  mental  ages,  namely  that  a  retardation  of  2 
years  at  chronological  age  5  is  more  serious  than  a  retardation 
of  2  years  at  chronological  age  12.  Yerkes  and  Wood  also  note 
that  they  would  not  have  predicted  Terman's  steadiness  of  I  Q. 
The  reason  for  this  statement  is  not  clear.  If  intelligence  is 
ability  to  get  along,  to  compete  on  equal  terms  with  others  of 
the  given  chronological  age  and  same  general  social  condition, 

10 Yerkes  and  Wood,  op.  tit.,  p.  594. 
11  Op.  tit.,  p.  598. 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  87 


then  intelligence  measured  in  I  Q's  and  C  I's  should  be  a  relative 
matter  of  distribution  within  the  age  groups.  We  should  expect 
a  certain  proportion  of  the  population  to  possess  it,  and  should 
expect  this  proportion  to  be  approximately  constant  at  all  ages. 
From  a  practical  point  of  view  the  I  Q  has  the  advantage 
of  being  the  apparent  limit  toward  which  the  C  I  approaches  as 
the  Point  Scale  norms  are  revised.  For  the  years  7  to  13  (for 
which  ages  Dr.  Yerkes  says  the  Point  Scale  is  most  reliable)  we 
have  the  average  number  of  points  awarded  to  each  to  be  6.9 
2.2  by  the  old  norms  and  6.4  1.2  by  the  new.  This  means 
that  correction  of  the  norms  for  the  Point  Scale  is  making  more 
equal  distribution  of  points  per  year.  Nowr,  if  the  distribution  of 
points  is  approaching  an  arithmetical  progression,  our  table  of 
norms  is  approaching  two  arithmetical  progressions  (one  the 
years  mental  age,  and  the  other  the  number  of  points  correspond- 
ing to  each  mental  age)  differing  in  the  size  step  but  dependent 
upon  one  another.  Let  us  then  consider  these  two  progressions. 
The  I  Q  is  calculated  from  the  one  (the  mental  ages);  the  C  I 
from  the  other  (the  scores).  Now  if  one  progression  varies 
with  the  other,  then  the  I  Q  and  the  C  I  will  also  vary  together 
and  therefore  have  the  same  meaning.  At  present,  of  course, 
the  column  of  scores  does  not  vary  exactly  with  the  mental  ages, 
but,  as  we  have  said,  revisions  in  the  norms  are  turning  it  strong- 
ly in  this  direction.  So  that  it  would  seem  simpler,  as  well  as 
more  correct  in  theory,  to  accept  the  I  Q  as  the  limit  toward 
which  the  C  I  is  approaching  and  to  use  the  I  Q  now  in  place  of 
the  C  I. 

COMPARISON  OF  THE  RATINGS  BY  THE  POINT  SCALE  AND  BINET 

EXAMINATIONS 

A  detailed  comparison  of  the  mental  ages  given  by  the  two 
scales  would  be  out  of  place  here,  because  since  we  began  this 
work  more  careful  comparisons  have  been  made  by  other  in- 
vestigators. From  the  data  which  we  have,  the  average  Point 
Scale  mental  age  for  years  5.5  to  6.  4  (Point  Scale  mental  age) 
is  1.3  years  lower;  for  6.5  to  7.4  it  is  .8  lower;  for  7.5  to  8.4  it  is 
.3  lower;  for  8.5  to  10.4  it  is  .6  higher;  for  10.5  to  12.4  it  is  1.0 
higher  and  for  ages  above  12.5  it  exceeds  the  Binet  by  increas- 
ingly greater  amounts.  The  differences  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
scale  are,  of  course,  only  natural  since  the  Binet  ratings  were 
obtained  from  the  Goddard  revision,  in  which  it  is  impossible 


88  Point  Scale  Examinations 


to  attain  a  mental  age  higher  than  12,  while  on  the'Point  Scale 
the  children  could  be  graded  as  high  as  18. 

For  the  same  reason  as  that  given  in  the  preceding  para- 
graph we  shall  give  no  detailed  discussion  of  the  Binet  and  Point 
Scale  I  Q's.  In  order  to  eliminate  the  errors  which  would  be . 
introduced  by  taking  the  limit  of  the  Binet  examination  (12)  as 
adult  mental  age,  we  used  16  as  the  divisor  in  our  computation 
of  I  Q's  in  each  scale.  The  median  of  the  Point  Scale  I  Q's  is 
.65;  that  of  the  Binet  I  Q's  is  .61.  This  slight  difference  may 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  method  used  prevents  the 
attainment  by  an  adult  of  a  Binet  I  Q  of  more  than  .75  since 
the  highest  mental  age  possible  is  12,  and  therefore  lowers  the 
number  of  large  Binet  without  affecting  Point  Scale  I  Q's. 
Moreover,  the  Binet  I  Q's  correlate  by  rank  differences  to  .84 
with  the  Point  Scale  I  Q's. 

This  brief  comparison  of  results  by  the  two  scales  shows: 
1)  between  the  Point  Scale  mental  ages  of  6.5  and  12.4  the  aver- 
age difference  between  Point  Scale  and  Binet  mental  ages  is  not 
more  than  a  year;  2)  if  the  I  Q  is  used  instead  of  the  mental  age, 
the  results  of  the  two  scales  agree  very  closely. 

COMPARISON    OF    THE    REACTIONS    OF    THE    NORMAL   AND    THE 
FEEBLE-MINDED.       THE    "VARIATION   TOTAL" 

Our  data  furnish  a  basis  for  comparing  the  typical  reactions 
of  the  feeble-minded  with  those  of  the  normal.  Dr.  Yerkes  very 
kindly  allowed  us  to  study  the  records  of  503  cases  which  he 
used  in  the  original  calculation  of  his  norms  for  English  speaking 
subjects.  From  these  records  we  determine  d  the  distribution 
of  scores  for  each  test  for  each  age,  counting  4.5  to  5.4  as  age  5, 
etc.  The  mode,  of  course,  in  some  places  included  only  a  small 
number  of  the  cases,  and  we  therefore  selected  the  most  frequent 
neighboring  scores  widely  enough  to  include  75%  of  the  cases. 
That  is,  we  determined  what  central  scores  taken  together  made 
up  75%  of  the  replies  at  a  given  age,  by  using  the  modal  score, 
and,  if  necessary,  the  neighboring  scores.  When  neighboring 
scores  had  to  be  used  the  largest  ones  were  taken  first.  If  there 
was  a  second  mode  or  if  there  was  a  second  large  number,  differ- 
ing by  not  more  than  1  or  2  from  the  mode,  this  was  included. 
The  table  of  scores  making  up  75%  of  replies  was  then  smoothed, 
and  the  final  numbers  which  were  settled  upon  as  "expected 
scores  for  normal  subjects"  are  given  in  Table  IV.  Modal 
scores  are  italicized  and  the  per  cent  of  cases  included  in  any 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  89 


group  of  scores  is  indicated  by  the  number  given  in  small  type. 
The  only  exception  to  this  is  test  6.     The  original  examination 
gave  slightly  different  scoring  for  this  test  so  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  say  exactly  what  its  modes  were  for  the  later  years. 

TABLE  IV 

EXPECTED  SCORE  FOR  EACH  TEST  AT  EACH  AGE   (NORMAL  CHILDREN) 

No.  of 

Test  Score  18-24 

25-30 

31-37 

38-45 

46-52 

1 

2,3 

(63) 

S 

(47) 

3 

(74) 

3 

(89) 

3 

(100) 

2 

\,2 

(57) 

-3,4 

(68) 

q      l 

o,  4 

(70) 

4 

(58) 

4 

(71) 

3 

1 

(57) 

I 

(74) 

3 

(60) 

3 

(51) 

3 

(62) 

4 

2,3 

(89) 

2,  3 

(74) 

3 

(51) 

3 

(44) 

3 

(44) 

5 

0 

(89) 

0 

(71) 

0,  1, 

2  (77) 

2,3,4 

(80) 

4 

(78) 

6 

2,4 

2,4 

2,4 

2,4 

2,4 

7 

.3,4, 

c    a  (91) 
O,  O 

6 

(50) 

6 

(59) 

6 

(79) 

6 

(78) 

8 

0 

(91) 

0 

(79) 

0 

(70) 

0,1,2 

(100) 

0,1, 

£  (100) 

9 

0,1 

(74) 

1,  2 

(74) 

/.*, 

&  (81) 
o 

2,3,4 

(70) 

4,5 

(53) 

10 

2,  .3, 

4  (69) 

2,3, 

4  (76) 

*.*, 

4  (59) 

4 

(69) 

4 

(53) 

11 

0 

(60) 

0,  1 

(59) 

0,  1 

(62) 

0,  1,2 

(75) 

0,1, 

2  4  (100) 

12 

1 

(49) 

/ 

(44) 

1,2 

(70) 

2 

(37) 

2,3 

(84) 

13 

0- 

(63) 

0 

(53) 

0 

(45) 

1 

(42) 

2 

(44) 

14 

0 

(100) 

0 

(100) 

0 

(96) 

0 

(94) 

0,2 

(78) 

15 

0 

(57) 

0,  1 

(71) 

1.* 

(64) 

2,3 

(63) 

2,  3 

(67) 

16 

0 

(94) 

0 

(79) 

0 

(79) 

0 

(54) 

0 

(44) 

90 

Point  Scale  Examinations 

18 

0 

(100) 

0 

(100) 

0 

(100) 

0 

(99) 

0 

(91) 

19 

0 

(100) 

0 

(100) 

0- 

(100) 

0 

(99) 

0 

(80) 

20 

0 

(94) 

0 

(88) 

0 

(85) 

0 

(68) 

1 

(47) 

1 

3 

53-60 

(100) 

3 

61-66 

(100) 

3 

67-71 

(100) 

3 

72-75 

(100) 

3 

76-7 

(100) 

2 

4 

(77) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

3 

3 

(85) 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

4 
5 

3,4 
4 

(67) 
(67) 

3,4 
4 

(72) 
(100) 

3,4, 

4 

5  (97) 

(97) 

3,4: 

4 

(100) 

3,4, 

4 

5  (97) 
(100) 

6 

7 

2,4 
8 

(66) 

2,4 
6 

(62) 

2,4 
6,7 

(77) 

2,4 
6,7, 

g  (86) 

2,4 

6,7, 

8(81) 

8 
9 

2 
5 

(62) 
(39) 

2 
5,6 

(79) 
(77) 

5,6 

(71) 
(94) 

2 
6 

(76) 
(81) 

2 
6 

(77) 
(87) 

10 

4,5 

(62) 

4,5, 

6(74) 

5,6 

(48) 

6,7 

(67) 

6,7 

(51) 

11 

2,3 

(61) 

2,3 

(74) 

3 

(55) 

3 

(71) 

3 

(74) 

12 

2,3, 

4  (95) 

3,4 

.      (82) 

4 

(55) 

4 

(57) 

4 

(71) 

13 

2 

(43) 

2,3 

(69) 

3,4 

(65) 

3,4 

(62) 

3,4 

(SI) 

14 

0,2, 

4  (ioo) 

2,4 

(85) 

2,4 

(81) 

4 

(86) 

4 

(81) 

15 

2,3 

(54) 

3,4 

(67) 

4,5, 

6(87) 

4,5, 

6  (81) 

4,  5, 

6(81) 

16 

0,1 

(67) 

1,2 

(51) 

1,2, 

3  (65) 

1,  2, 

S<« 

2,3, 

4(77) 

17 

1,2 

(64) 

1.% 

(51) 

2,3 

(68) 

3,4 

(67) 

3,4 

(74> 

18 

0,1, 

2  (85) 

'2 

(59) 

2,4 

(77) 

2,4 

(86) 

4 

(51) 

Josephine  N.  Curtis  91 


19 

0, 

g         (95) 

0, 

2       (82) 

2  4       (90) 

*, 

4       (90) 

2,4 

(90) 

20 

1 

(61) 

'• 

a         (74) 

iff 

g               (51) 

* 

(29) 

2,, 

(68) 

80-82 

83-85 

86* 

87-88 

89-100 

1 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

g               (100) 

3 

*         (100) 

5 

(100) 

2 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

/               (100) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

3 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

3               (100) 

3 

(100) 

3 

(100) 

4 

4, 

5       (95) 

4, 

5       (85) 

4,  5       (67) 

4, 

5       (93) 

5 

(86) 

5 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

/               (100) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(100) 

6 

2, 

4 

2, 

4 

2,4 

*, 

4,6 

2,4, 

6 

7 

6, 

7,  8,  9  (100) 

8, 

9      (55) 

8  9       (83) 

8, 

9      (57) 

5,9 

(76) 

8 

2 

(89) 

2 

(95) 

0               (100) 

2 

(93) 

2 

(97) 

9 

6 

(89) 

6 

(80) 

£               (100) 

6 

(100) 

6 

(97) 

10 

6, 

j         (.58) 

6, 

7    o  (90) 
/,  0 

fi    7   %    (67) 
O,  /,  o 

7, 

o          (71) 

1,8 

(72) 

11 

3 

(68) 

3 

(75) 

Q               (67) 

3 

(86) 

3 

(66) 

12 

4 

(63) 

4 

(75) 

,               (83) 

4 

(100) 

4 

(90) 

13 

3, 

4     (95) 

4 

(80) 

4         (83) 

4 

(93) 

4 

(83) 

14 

4 

(89) 

4 

(85) 

4               (83) 

4 

(93) 

4 

(93) 

15 

6, 

7,  8  (100) 

6, 

7,  8  (90) 

6,  7,  5  (100) 

6, 

7,  8  (93) 

8 

(72) 

16 

3, 

4     (42) 

3, 

4     (75) 

,               (50) 

4 

(57) 

4 

(62) 

17 

3, 

4,  5  (100) 

3, 

4,  5  (85) 

3,  4,  ,5  <100) 

4, 

o       (79) 

4,o 

(86) 

18 

4 

(42) 

4, 

£         (80) 

4,  6       (100) 

6 

(50) 

6 

(72) 

19 

4 

(68) 

4 

(60) 

^               (-33) 

4 

(64) 

6 

(66) 

20 

2, 

o    /  (89) 

6,  4 

2> 

3,  4  (6rj) 

3,  4t  '5 

3, 

4,5(71> 

5,6 

(66) 

*Cnly  6  rasos. 


92  Point  Scale  Examinations 


From  the  table  of  expected  scores  we  have  obtained  a  "  Varia- 
tion Total"  (V.  T.),  i-  e.  the  sum  of  variations  from  the  expected 
scores  of  that  mental  age  for  each  normal  case,  for  each  of  our 
200  feeble-minded  cases  at  the  Waverley  School,  and  for  a  group 
of  patients  at  the  Psychopathic  Hospital.  Patients  diagnosed 
as  feeble-minded  are  grouped  in  Table  V  with  the  Waverley 
cases.  This  table  gives  the  distribution  of  Variation  Totals 
for  all  the  cases.  Irl  the  last  column  will  be  found  the  distribu- 
tion for  a  number  of  psychoses  grouped  together;  the  cases  of 
dementia  praecox,  alcoholic  psychosis,  epileptic  psychosis,  syphi- 
litic psychosis,  unclassified  paranoid  psychosis,  cases  pronounced 
by  all  the  staff  to  be  psychotic  but  where  there  was  disagreement 
as  to  the  particular  psychosis  in  question,  and  a  few  scattering 
cases  of  arterio-sclerotie  psychosis,  drug  psychosis,  etc.  From 
this  group  we  have  excluded  our  cases  of  Psychopathic  Personal- 
ity, Manic  Depressive  Insanity,  Hysteria,  and  Psychoneurosis, 
because  these  groups  are  in  general  so  near  the  normal. 

The  medians,  upper  and  lower  quartiles  for  the  different 
psychoses  are  given  in  the  following  abbreviated  table: 

Lower          Upper 

Diagnosis  Median     Quartile      Quartile 

Normal  759 

Not  psychotic  7                   6 .                10 

Retarded  or  subnormal  9                    7                  12 

Feeble-minded  9                   7                 11 

Psychopathic  Personality  537 

Manic-Depressive  8                   5                  12 

Psychoneurosis  9                    7                  11 

Dementia  Praecox  9                    7                  13 

Alcoholic  Psychosis  12                  10                  14 

Syphilitic  Psychosis  10                    8                  14 

Unclassified  Paranoid  879 

Unclassified  Psychosis  9                    8                  12 

Grouped  Psychoses  10                   7                  14 

The  extremes  lie  with  the  psychopathic  personalities  (median 
5)  and  the  alcoholic  psychoses  (median  12).  The  fact  that  the 
psychopathic  personalities  seem  to  vary  less  from  the  expected 
scores  for  normals  than  do  the  normals  themselves  may  be  ex- 
plained easily.  The  psychopathic  personalities  give  total  scores 
on  the  Point  Scale  ranging  from  66  to  96  writh  the  median  at  87, 


Josephine  N.  Curtis 


93 


while  the  normals  range  from  18  to  97  with  the  median  at  55. 
It  is  evident  that  the  higher  the  total  score  is  the  less,  roughly 
speaking,  is  the  chance  for  variation.  Thus  if  a  subject  gives  a 
total  score  of  95  he  can  lose  only  5  points  throughout  the  20 
tests.  He  cannot  get  more  than  is  expected  in  any  test  because 
(see  Table  IV)  for  total  scores  between  89  and  100  the  highest 
score  possible  for  each  test  is  included  under  the  expected  scores. 
He,  therefore,  cannot  possibly  have  a  Variation  Total  of  more 
than  5.12  We  have,  then,  in  our  psychopathic  personalities  a 
group  of  adults  grading  at  adult  mental  age,  who  would  probably 
not  be  less  variable  than  a  group  of  normal  adults,  but  are  less 
variable  than  our  group  of  normal  school  children.  ' 

TABLE  V 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  VARIATION  TOTALS  FOR  DIFFERENT  DIAGNOSES 


6 

o 

'?, 

V.  T. 

0 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 

1 2This  may  seem  to  suggest  that  V  T's  should  have  different  significance  for  different  total 
scores.  We  feel,  however,  that  this  is  not  true  except  for  the  extremely  high  scores.  For  our 
normals  we  have  comparable  distributions  for  different  sizes  of  total  score  except  that  for  scores 
above  91  we  have  no  V  T's  larger  than  (>. 


2 
12 
17 

1 
2 
5 

1 

3 

1 
3 

6 

1 
1 

1 
1 

1 

1 

3 
1 

28 

11 

1) 

3 

1 

2 

1 

4 

50 

6 

1 

13 

4 

1 

4 

1 

2 

1 

1 

9 

77 

13 

1 

31 

5 

2 

1 

1 

1 

3 

1 

3 

9 

61 

20 

5 

33 

6 

1 

2 

4 

1 

3 

9 

71 

17 

0 

39 

3 

2 

5 

2 

2 

2  2 

8 

22 

50 

1!) 

6 

50 

4 

3 

1 

7 

2 

2 

1  2 

11 

25 

46 

14 

10 

35 

1 

2 

6 

2 

2 

1  1 

6 

20 

37 

15 

7 

49 

1 

3 

4 

4 

1 

2 

5 

17 

23 

6 

5 

23 

2 

1 

3 

7 

2 

1  1 

4 

18 

13 

8 

4 

21 

2 

1 

3 

1 

3 

1 

5 

11 

4 

1 

3 

27 

1 

5 

3 

9 

10 

5 

1 

3 

17 

2 

1 

3 

5 

1 

1 

5 

16 

1 

4 

5 

14 

1 

1 

1 

3 

7 

2 

2 

7 

3 

3 

3 

10 

2 

1 

2 

3 

1 

4 

94 


I'oint  Scale  Examinations 


18 

1                                                          222 

6 

19 

2                                      111 

4 

20 

1                           2                              22                            1 

6 

21 

1                                                            1 

1 

22 

111 

2 

23 

24 

1                                                                    1 

1 

25 

1 

1 

26 

27 

1                                                1 

1 

No.  of 

cases     503     146     60    380    41     12     19     54     43     21     15     8     65         218 

The  alcoholic  psychoses  give  by  far  the  highest  median  V  T. 
This  high  value  is  probably  not  a  symptom  of  alcoholic  psychosis 
itself,  but  rather  of  advancement  of  deterioration  or  depth  of 
psychosis.  Many  persons,  doubtless,  would  expect  the  dementia 
praecox  patients  to  show  greater  variability  than  the  alcoholics, 
and  in  the  majority  of  hospitals  for  the  insane  this  would  prob- 
ably be  true,  but  in  the  Psychopathic  Hospital  in  Boston  we  have 
a  rather  selected  group.  The  selection  may  be  illustrated  by 
statements  concerning  two  classes :  the  alcoholics  and  the  demen- 
tia praecox.  The  latter  group  find  their  way  into  institutions 
comparatively  early  in  life.  They  show  hallucinations  and 
delusions,  etc.,  before  they  have  deteriorated  markedly  and  so, 
by  the  time  they  are  greatly  deteriorated  they  are  already  in  a 
state  asylum  and  not  likely  to  enter  a  "clearing  house"  like  the 
Psychopathic.  Our  dementia  praecox  cases,  then,  will  be  little 
deteriorated  and,  unless  decidedly  schizophrenic,  will  not  show 
large  variations.  The  cases  of  alcoholic  psychoses,  on  the  con- 
trary, do  not  come  into  the  hospital  until  they  are  older  and 
until  their  psychosis  has  begun  to  interfere  definitely  with  their 
work.  Besides  the  initial  selection  there  is  a  further  selection 
in  the  cases  which  are  referred  for  psychological  examination. 
The  great  majority  of  patients  under  age  25  are  sent  for  this 
examination.  This  includes  a  great  many  cases  of  beginning 
dementia  praecox,  and  practically  none  of  beginning  alcoholic 
psychosis.  Of  the  more  advanced  cases,  the  alcoholics  are  more 
accesssible  and  so  if  the  problem  is  one  of  degree  of  deterioration, 
a  deteriorated  alcoholic  will,  in  general,  co-operate  better  than  a 
deteriorated  dementia  praecox.  This  means  that  more  deteri- 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  95 


orated  alcoholics  will  be  referred  to  the  psychological  depart- 
ment and  that  of  those  referred  we  shall  be  able  to  use  the  record 
of  a  greater  per  cent  of  alcoholics  than  of  dementia  praecox.13 

The  above  discussion  may  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  we 
may  expect  larger  variations  from  cases  of  psychosis  of  long 
standing  and  that  in  general  our  data  err  on  the  side  of  conserva- 
tism, i.  e.,  that  probably  we  may  expect  an  unselected  group  of 
psychotics  to  show  greater  V  T's  than  the  ones  we  have  given. 

We  find  from  the  table  that  the  unclassified  paranoid  give 
small  V  T's.  The  diagnosis  means,  practically,  that  the  patient 
has  no  symptoms  other  than  paranoid  ideas.  Admittedly,  then, 
said  patient  is  not  taken  by  the  psychiatrists  to  be  either  deteri- 
orated or  markedly  psychotic.  And  we  find  a  small  V  T.  The 
manic-depresssives  also  give  a  comparatively  small  V  T,  but 
here  we  have  a  wide  range  with  quartiles  at  5  and  12. 

On  the  whole  the  outstanding  feature  of  our  table  is  that 
normals  and  "not  psychotic"  subjects  give  smaller  V  T's  than 
do  the  feeble-minded,  and  that  the  feeble-minded  give  smaller 
V  T's  than  do  the  deteriorated  or  the  markedly  psychotic  pa- 
tients. 

We  have  computed  the  probable  correctness  of  the  differ- 
ence14 for  our  larger  groups.  The  average  V  T's  for  these 
groups  are : 

Normals  Average     6 . 8 

Not  psychotic  7 . 6 

Feeble-minded  9 . 2 

Grouped  psychotics  10.6 

Probable  correctness  of  differences  between: 

Normal  and  not  psychotic  .57 

Normal  and  feeble-minded  .  70 

Normal  and  psychotic  .  75 

Feeble-minded  and  psychotic  .62 

Feeble-minded  and  not  psychotic  .  62 

Psychotic  and  not  psychotic  .  69 

Plate  I  (a)  gives  the  data  in  Table  V  in  graphical  form. 
We  have  grouped  the  Variation  Totals  into  the  divisions  0-4, 
5-9,  10-14,  15-19,  20-24,  25-29.  We  have  moreover  supposed 
that  a  larger  number  of  cases  in  any  one  of  our  four  large  groups 

15In  (Mir  computations  we  have  thrown  out  all  cases  recorded  as  showing  poor  co-o[>eration, 
and  all  those  having  any  language  difficulty. 

1  4  Boring,  E.  (i..  The  N'uml>er  of  Observations  upon  which  a  Li  men  may  IK-  Based.  A.  J.  T., 
19 Hi,  xxvii,  p.  317. 


90 


Point  Scale  Examinations 


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would  give  the  same  general  distribution  shown  by  the  cases 
already  examined;  and  we  have  consequently  multiplied  the 
figures  for  the  "not  psychotic"  by  3.5,  those  for  the  feeble- 
minded by  1.3,  and  those  for  the  psychotics  by  2.3  to  make 
these  groups  of  the  same  size  as  our  normal  group. 


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Plate  I  (b)  shows  the  probability  that  a  case  having  any 
given  V  T  will  belong  to  each 'of  our  large  groups.  Supposing 
100  cases  at  each  size  V  T  and  supposing  equal  numbers  of  the 
different  diagnoses,  then  from  the  curves  we  may  read  the  chance 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  97 


that  any  given  case  is  feeble-minded,  or  psychotic,  or  not  psycho- 
tic. Normals  are  not  included  for  the  obvious  reason  that 
patients  are  diagnosed  not  "normal"  but  "not  psychotic. "  The 
table  from  which  this  plate  was  made  is  given  below: 

PER  CENT  OF  CASES  FOR  DIFFERENT  SIZES  V  T  FOUND  UNDER 
THE    DIFFERENT    DIAGNOSES 

V  T                      Not  Psychotic  Feeble-Minded       Psychotic 

0-  4                                54  22  24 

5-  9                               39  34  27 

10-14                                24  40  26 

15-19                                17  27  56 

20-24                                  0  19  81 

25-29  (too  few  cases) 

If  we  disregard  the  diagnosis  "not  psychotic,"  we  may  say 
roughly  that  cases  giving  V  T's  above  15  (and  particularly  above 
20)  are  more  likely  to  be  psychotic  than  feeble-minded. 

There  are  many  other  problems  in  variability  which  we 
hope  to  attack  at  some  future  time.  First,  there  is  the  ques- 
tion of  what  variations  we  would  get  if  our  table  of  expected 
scores  gave  the  score  expected  for  each  part  of  each  test.  It 
seems  probable  that  epileptics  would  show  greater  variability 
by  parts  of  tests  than  by  wholes.  Then  there  is  the  question 
of  types  within  the  psychoses.  For  example,  are  the  hebephrenic 
dementia  praecox  more  or  less  variable  than  the  dementia 
simplex?  Doubtless  the  paranoid  dementia  praecox  would  show 
small  variation  totals.  There  is  the  question  of  the  variability 
of  super-normal  children.  From  our  casual  observation  of  a 
few  such  children,  it  would  seem  that  they  have  high  V  T's. 
Many  other  problems  arise  and  offer  a  large  field  for  work 

TESTS   WHICH   ARE   EASY   FOR  THE   NORMAL  OR  FOR   THE 
FEEBLE-MINDED 

If  we  compare  Table  IV  of  expected  scores  for  the  normals 
and  a  similar  table  for  the  feeble-minded,  we  find  that  given 
the  same  mental  age,  we  expect  higher  scores  from  normals  in 
tests  4  (repetition  of  digits),  6  (repetition  of  sentences),  9  (com- 
parison of  objects),  10  (concrete  definitions),  13  (free  associa- 
tion), and  14  (three  words  in  one  sentence),  and  higher  scores 
from  the  feeble-minded  in  tests  7  (interpretation  of  pictures),  11 
(resistance  of  suggestion),  12  (copying  square  and  diamond), 


98  Point  Scale  Examinations 


and  15  (comprehension  of  questions).  These  lists  are  drawn 
merely  from  observation  of  the  two  tables,  and  are  not  con- 
clusive. They  may  be  checked  by  approaching  the  problem 
by  another  path.  If  we  take  into  account  the  algebraic  sign  of 
the  variations  of  the  feeble-minded  scores  from  the  normal  ex- 
pected score,  we  obtain  the  average  deviations  of  the  feeble- 
minded from  the  normal  as  follows: 

Test  +  Test       +  Test       +  Test        + 

1  0      .06  6  .08      .06         11        .14      .32         16        .50      .10 

2  .01  .26  7  1  .18  .07  12  .21  .11  17  .25  .16 

3  .04  .07  8  .04  .22  13  .17  .55  18  .30  .19 

4  .15  .24  9  .09  .53  14  .05  .28  19  .39  .13 

5  .03  .26  10  .24  .18  15  .70  .04  20  .35  .16 

We  find  then  that  the  feeble-minded  give  scores  higher 
than  the  normal  in  Tests  6,  7,  10,  12,  15,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  and 
scores  lower  than  the  normal  in  Tests  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  8,  9,  11,  13,  14. 
If  we  consider  only  the  cases  in  which  the  difference  is  10  or  more, 
we  have  the  feeble-minded  superior  in  Tests  7,  12,  15,  16,  18,  19, 
20,  and  inferior  in  Tests  2,  5,  8,  9,  11,  13,  14.  When  these  lists 
are  compared  with  the  lists  obtained  by  the  first  method  used, 
we  find  that  the  two  agree  in  calling  Tests  7,  12,  and  15  easy  for 
the  feeble-minded,  and  Tests  9,  13,  and  14  hard  for  the  feeble- 
minded. The  only  disagreement  is  in  Test  11,  which  is  called 
easy  in  one  list  and  hard  in  the  other.15 

We  should  suppose  that  superiority  of  the  feeble-minded  in 
certain  tests  would  be  due  either  to  special  training  or  to  the 
experience  brought  with  increasing  chronological  age.  Terman16 
has  summarized  some  of  the  conclusions  made  on  the  influence 
of  the  age  factor.  If  we  consider  tendency  for  percentage  of 
successes  to  increase  with  age  as  the  equivalent  of  a  tendency  for 
the  feeble-minded  to  pass  the  tests  more  easily  than  the  normal, 
then  we  may  say  that  of  the  Point  Scale  tests  we  should  expect 
the  feeble-minded  to  excel  in  :• — comprehension  of  questions, 
definitions  by  use,  and  probably  copying  square  and  diamond; 

13 Doll  reports  (X.  Y.  Meeting  of  the  Am.  Psych.  Ass.,  Dec.,  1916)  that  definitions  (concrete 
and  abstract),  reactions  to  pictures,  comparison  of  objects,  memory  span,  absurdities,  sentences 
containing  3  given  words,  and  free  association  are  easy  for  the  feeble-minded;  and  that  comparison 
of  2  weights,  aesthetic  comparison,  copying  square  and  diamond,  missing  parts,  counting  back- 
ward, arrangement  of  weights,  and  drawing  designs  from  memory  are  hard  for  them.  We  agree 
with  Doll  on  one  point  only,  that  the  interpretation  of  pictures  is  easy  for  the  feeble-minded. 

1 'Terman,  L.  M.  The  Stanford  Revision  and  Extension  of  the  Binet-Simon  Scale  for 
Measuring  Intelligence,  Warwick  &  York,  1917,  p.  143. 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  99 


and  to  be  inferior  in:— repetition  of  6  digits  and  of  syllables, 
dissected  sentences,  60  words  in  3  minutes.  This  would  mean 
that  our  feeble-minded  should  receive  higher  scores  in  tests  10 
and  15,  and  probably  in  12;  and  that  they  should  receive  lower 
scores  in  tests  4,  6,  13  and  18.  On  referring  to  our  table,  we 
find  this  upheld  except  in  the  case  of  18  (dissected  sentences). 

In  Appendix  I  we  give  a  qualitative  table  of  typical  re- 
sponses of  feeble-minded  at  different  mental  ages. 

DIFFICULTY    OF    THE    DIFFERENT    TESTS 

The  question  of  which  tests  it  is  safe  to  omit  in  the  examina- 
tion of  a  patient  who  is  evidently  very  low  grade  depends  upon 
the  determination  of  which  tests  are  most  difficult.  Some  idea 
of  this  may  be  obtained  from  the  table  of  expected  scores.  If 
we  arrange  for  each  year  the  tests  in  order  of  per  cent  of  total 
possible  score  which  was  attained,  we  find  that  roughly  speaking 
the  first  ten  tests  are  easier  than  the  last  ten,  that  test  1  is  easiest 
of  all,  that  tests  2  and  3  come  next,  and  that  16,  17,  18,  19  and 
20  are  the  hardest.  Such  a  method,  however,  does  not  give 
results  exact  enough  to  use  in  determining  the  tests  which  may 
be  omitted.  If  we  take  the  original  data  on  our  feeble-minded 
for  each  test  and  find  the  average  per  cent  of  total  possible  score 
for  each  test  attained  by  the  200  cases,  we  find  that  tests  1,  2 
and  3  are  the  easiest;  then  come  5,  7  and  12;  then  4,  8,  9,  10  and 
11;  then  6,  13,  14,  15,  16,  and  17;  and  hardest  of  all  are  18,  19, 
and  20.  Since  the  whole  of  tests  4  and  6  is  not  given  unless  all 
preceding  parts  have  been  passed,  we  should  not  consider  them 
in  a  comparison  of  the  different  tests.  The  other  eighteen  tests 
are  found  to  be  arranged  in  the  Point  Scale  in  the  order  of  in- 
creasing difficulty  with  the  exception  of  test  12  which  is  easier 
than  test  8  and  harder  than  test  7. 

The  subdivisions  are  generally  arranged  in  the  Point  Scale 
in  order  of  increasing  difficulty.  Some  exceptions  to  this  rule 
are  that  in  test  10  part  (c)  is  the  easiest  of  all;  in  test  17  part  (b) 
is  the  easiest;  in  test  19  part  (b)  is  easiest;  and  in  test  20  (c)  is 
easier  than  (b),  and  (f)  is  easier  than  (d)  or  (e).17 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  the 
lowest  age  at  which  any  test  received  full  credit  was  5.4  when 
test  2  was  passed.  At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  comes  test  20, 

Recent  experience  has  shown  that  the  present  European  war  has  had  a  great  influence 
on  part  (f)  of  this  test;  for,  up  to  the  time  of  the  war,  this  part  was  decidedly  the  hardest  one  in 
the  test,  but  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  the  percentage  of  correct  responses  ha<  increased 
enorraomly. 


100  Point  Scale  Examinations 

which  never  received  full  credit  under  the  mental  age  of  15.  On 
the  other  hand,  no  one  over  mental  age  5.9  ever  failed  to  receive 
full  credit  in  test  1. 

RESULTS    FROM    THE    ADULT    POINT    SCALE    EXAMINATION 

A  table  comparing  the  Adult  Point  Scale  scores  of  our  group 
with  the  Child  Point  Scale  Scores  has  already  been  published18 
and  shows  that  on  the  average  the  adult  score  is  .51  of  the  child 
score.  On  the  child  scale  we  find  a  range  of  from  92  to  62  points ; 
on  the  adult  a  range  of  from  54  to  20.  If  the  scores  on  the  two 
scales  are  compared  by  the  method  of  Rank  Differences  the 
coefficient  of  co-ordination  is  .81  P.  E.  .04.  There  is,  therefore, 
high  correlation  between  the  scores  obtained  on  the  two  scales. 

Six  of  our  33  cases  show  a  somewhat  wide  divergence  from 
general  rules.  Case  194  has  an  adult  score  which  is  70%  of  her 
child  score;  case  189  one  of  68%;  case  187  one  of  74%;  case  188, 
one  of  40%;  case  186,  one  of  34%,  and  case  166,  one  of  26%. 
The  reasons  for  these  extreme  results  are  not  clear. 

The  question  as  to  which  of  the  adult  tests  are  the  most 
difficult  for  our  subjects  may  be  answered  roughly  by  comparing 
the  average  per  cent  of  total  score  which  was  obtained  for  each 
test.  The  tests  arranged  in  order  from  easiest  to  hardest  are 
as  follows:  2  (comparison  of  weights)  85%;  19  (copying  dia- 
monds), 71%;  20  (designs  from  memory)  68%;  9  (absurdities), 
68%;  17  (ball  and  field),  50%;  1  (description  of  pictures),  50%; 
5  (memory  for  sentences),  47%;  4  (suggestibility),  45%;  12 
(relation  test)  44%;  10  (analogies),  42%;  7,  (comprehension  of 
questions),  41%;  6  (comparison  of  objects),  41%;  3  (memory 
span),  41%;  8  (definitions)  30%,;  13  (box  test),  29%;  11  (associa- 
tion of  opposites),  27%;  16  (code),  15%;  15  (comparison  of 
capital  letters),  14%;  18  (geometrical  construction),  8%:  14 
(ingenuity)%. 

In  Dr.  Yerkes'  revision  of  the  adult  scale,  he  has  dropped 
test  2  and  19,  as  being  unsatisfactory,  and  has  dropped  14  011 
account  of  a  very  large  sex  difference  found.  These  changes  are 
in  accordance  with  the  impressions  gained  in  giving  the  examina- 
tion to  the  feeble-minded.  We  also  found  great  variations  in 
test  1,  due  apparently  to  too  great  a  range  of  interpretation  of 
directions;  some  subjects  try  to  give  a  description  from  an  artistic 
point  of  view,  and  so  fail  in  the  end  to  give  the  number  of  details 
necessary  for  full  credit,  although  their  discussion  of  the  picture 

18  Yerkes  and  Rossy,  op.  cif.,  p.  572. 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  101 


may  be,  by  ordinary  standards,  far  superior  to  an  enumeration 
of  things  seen  in  the  picture. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  we  expected  to  work  out  the 
significance  of  the  separate  tests  as  tests  of  intelligence.  We 
approached  the  subject  from  several  points  of  view,  such  as 
finding  the  coefficient  of  variability  for  each  of  the  tests,  finding 
the  coefficient  of  correlation  between  scores  on  separate  tests 
and  total  scores,  etc.,  but  our  results  convinced  us  of  nothing 
more  than  the  fact  that  the  question  could  not  be  settled  without 
the  use  of  much  more  statistical  work  than  we  had  time  to  give  or 
than  the  paucity  of  our  data  would  authorize  us  to  give. 

CONCLUSIONS 

1)  The  revised  Point  Scale  norms  give  a  more  probable 
distribution  of  cases  than  do  the  old  norms. 

2)  The  Intelligence  Quotient  is  preferable  to  the  Coefficient 
of  Intelligence  both  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view  and  from 
the  application  to  individual  cases. 

3)  Point  Scale  and  Binet  mental  ages  agree  well  for  the 
middle  portion  of  the  range  of  ages.     Point  Scale  and  Binet 
I  Q's,  both  computed  with  16  as  adult  age,  give  a  coefficient  of 
correlation  of  .84. 

4)  Tests  which  are  easy  for  the  feeble-minded  are :  compre- 
hension of  questions,  definitions  by  use,  and  copying  square  and 
diamond.     Tests  which  are  hard  for  them  are:  repetition  of  6 
digits  and  of  syllables,  and  giving  words  in  three  minutes. 

5)  The  tests  on  the  Point  Scale  are  arranged  approximately 
in  order  of  difficulty. 

6)  The  Adult  Point  Scale  (preliminary  form)  gives  scores 
about  one-half  of  those  obtained  by  the  same  subject  on  the 
Child  Point  Scale. 

7)  Either  12  is  decidedly  too  low  for  the  Point  Scale  mental 
age  above  which  persons  are  not  feeble-minded,  or  the  Waverley 
School  has  a  number  of  children  who  are  not  intellectually  inferior. 

8)  The  Variation  Total  is  useful  as  an  aid  in  differentiating 
between  feeble-mindedness  and  deterioration. 


102  Point  Scale  Examinations 


APPENDIX  A 

VARIETIES    OF   ANSWERS    GIVEN    AT    DIFFERENT    MENTAL   AGES 

(Figures  in  parentheses  indicate  mental  ages  at  which  the  different 

answers  were  given.) 

Test  1 

There  were  in  all  only  three  failures  (5,  8,  9)  in  this  "test  and  all 
of  these  came  in  the  comparison  of  the  third  pair  of  faces. 

Test  2 

No  failures  were  made  in  picture  a;  nine  (6  to  12)  occurred  in 
picture  b  alone;  thirteen  (6  to  10)  in  picture  c  alone;  nine  (8  to 
15)  in  picture  d  alone;  three  (7  to  9)  in  both  b  and  c;  seven  (8  to  9) 
in  both  c  and  d;  and  four  (5  to  8)  in  all  three  pictures  b,  c,  and  d. 
We  should  therefore  expect  picture  a  to  be  passed  if  any  of  the 
test  is  passed,  and  should  expect  part  c  to  be  failed  more  often 
than  either  b  or  d. 

Test3 

No  failures  were  made  in  part  a.  Four  subjects  (5  to  9)  failed 
in  part  b;  three  (6  to  8)  in  part  c;  and  nine  (5  to  8)  in  both  c  and  d. 

Test  4 

(This  test  needs  no  discussion  since  it  is  evident  that  each  part  is 
more  difficult  than  the  part  preceding.) 

Test  5 

(Mental  age  10)     No  failures  to  count  backward  from  20. 

(9)  77%  succeed  from  20;  7%  from  15;  8%  from  10;   1%  from  5: 

7%  fail 
(8)  55%  succeed  from  20;  15%  from  15;  9%  from  10;  9% from  5: 

12%  fail 
(7)  25%  succeed  from  20;  0%  from!5;  13%  from  10;  0%  from  5; 

63%  fail 
(6)  0%  succeed  from  20;  0%  from  15;  0%  from  10;  14%  from  5; 

86%  fail 

There  is  then,  some  probability  of  a  child  between  the  mental 
ages  of  6  and  9  receiving  partial  credit  in  this  test,  but  ordinarily 
he  will  receive  either  full  credit  or  none. 

Test  6 

This  test,  like  test  4,  needs  no  discussion  here. 

Test  7 

In  part  a  the  description  "man  and  boy  pulling  wagon"  was  given 
24  times;  "moving"  was  given  as  interpretation  21  times;  and 
expressions  like  "no  horse,"  "man  for  horse"  58  times.  In  part 
b  "man  and  lady  sitting  on  settee"  was  given  28  times  and  the 


Josephine  N..  Curtis  103 


interpretations  "man  asleep"  38  times,  "man  dead"  13  times, 
"poor"  16  times,  "no  home"  13  times,  "sick"  14  times.  In  part 
c  "standing  up"  and  "looking  out  the  window"  were  practically 
the  only  descriptions  given,  and  "in  prison"  the  only  interpreta- 
tion. 

Typical  answers  for  the  different  mental  ages  are: 
Part  (a) 

(6)  "Man  and  boy  pulling  the  wagon,"  "Wheels  are  on  crook- 
ed." 

(7)  "Pulling  team  along,"  "Man  trying  to  tip  it  over." 

(8)  "Team  tipping  over.     One  old  man  and  one  boy.     Two 
wheels  off,"  "Man  for  a  horse.     Man  pushing  him." 

(9)  "Man  and  boy  pulling  cart  with  load  of  furniture,"  "Ped- 
dlar's  cart.     Man  sells  things,  boy  helps  him,"  "Moving. 
Making  horses  out  of  man  and  boy.     Germans  after  them. " 

(10)  "Pretty  poor.     No  home. "     " Horse  has  run  away.     Man 
and  boy  took  his  place.     Storm.    Wagon  going  to  tip  over. " 

(11)  "Having  hard  time.     It  would  be  better  if  they  had  a 
horse.     Load  apt  to  tip  over."     "In  time  of  war.     Burnt 
out  by  a  shell.     Took  what  they  could  with  them. " 

(12)  "Olden  times.     Poor  people  couldn't  buy  horses.     Had  to 
pull  own  loads.'      "Man  poor.     Was  out  in  a  dump,  saw  old 
cart.     Boy  belongs  to  him.     Found  as  much  furniture  as  he 
could.     Hard  working  man." 

(15)   "Furniture?     Moving  day."     "Shows  old  man  and  son 
or  grandson  walking  up  slippery  hill  with  cart.     Furniture 
on  cart.     Seem  to  be  moving." 
Part  (b) 

(6)  "Lady  and  man  sitting  on  settee." 

(7)  "Sleeping  on   the  common."     "Lady   and   man.     Lady 
holding  on  to  man's  arms. " 

(8)  "  Father  and  mother  and  settee  they're  sitting  on. "  "  Looks 
as  if  they  were  cold."     "Man  asleep,  woman  awake  on  set- 
tee." 

(9)  "  He  fell  asleep.     She  looks  scared. "     "  People  look  poor. " 

(10)  "Man  looks  dead.     Must  be  his  daughter. "     "Man  looks 
as  if  he  was  trying  to  help  that  woman."     "Snowing.     He's- 
praying. " 

(11)  "Old  and  tired.     Have  no  home  to  go  to."     "Man  is  sick. 
Lady  worrying  over  him. " 

(12)  "Haven't  any  home  to  go  to,  so  are  sleeping  there." 
"Man  blind.     Woman  must  be  deaf.     Lost  his  hat. " 


104  Point  Scale  Examinations 

Part  (c) 

(6)  "Standing  up,  looking  out  window." 

(7)  "Man  standing  near  post. "     " Standing  up  on  couch. " 

(8)  "  Fixing  the  window. "     "  Looking  out  the  window. " 

(9)  "  Looking  out  the  window  for  someone. "     "  Man  in  prison,, 
looking  out  toward  the  sky. "  j 

(10)  "Locked  in  prison  for  someth'ng  he's  done.     Trying  to 
plead  to  get  out  '      "Watching  to  see  if  his  wife  is  coming 
home. " 

(11)  "  In  prison  trying  to  look  out  and  get  air.     Done  something 
wrong  in  his  life. " 

Tests 

In  cases  in  which  partial  credit  was  given,  the  following  inversions 
in  order  occurred:  of  weights  3  and  6,  twenty-nine  cases  (7  to  14); 
of  weights  6  and  9,  fourteen  cases  (7  to  13);  of  weights  9  and  12, 
twenty-two  cases  (8  to  15);  and  of  weights  12  and  15,  twenty-four 
cases  (7  to  15).  From  this  it  is  evident  that  weights  3  and  6  are 
differentiated  with  the  most  difficulty.  According  to  Weber's 
Law  we  should  expect  that  3  and  6  would  be  most  easily  arranged, 
and  12  and  15  with  the  most  difficulty.  If  we  disregard  the  con- 
fusion of  3  and  6,  we  find  the  other  pairs  arranged  as  would  be 
expected. 

It  is  interesting  in  connection  with  this  test  to  note  that  almost 
without  exception  subjects  called  weights  3  and  6  "light"  and 
the  other  blocks  "heavy." 
Test  9 

Part  (a) 

The  differences  between  apple  and  banana  most  frequently 
given  are:  shape,  153  times  (5  to  15);  color,  68  times  (5  to 
15) ;  kind  or  size  of  seeds,  27  times  (8  to  15) ;  method  of  peeling, 
18  times  (8  to  15);  possibility  of  eating  the  skin,  18  times 
(8  to  14).  Besides  these  main  differences,  we  find  differences 
in  swreetness  (8  to  15) ;  in  thickness  of  skin  (8  to  15) ;  in  kind 
of  stem  (8  to  11);  in  number  growing  together  (9  to  15);  in 
hardness  (7  to  13) ;  in  core  (10  to  12) ;  in  climate  where  grown 
(11  to  15);  in  juiciness  (10  to  15)  in  size  (7  to  14);  in  weight 
(7);  in  time  of  year  obtainable  (9)  in  nutritive  value  (9); 
and  in  possibility  of  being  made  into  cider  (11). 
Part  (b) 

The  differences  between  wood  and  glass  most  frequently 
given  are:  transparency,  90  times  (8  to  15);  use,  59  times 
(5  to  15);  ease  with  which  it  is  broken,  55  times;  and  possi- 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  105 


bility  of  burning,  26  times  (6  to  15).  Other  differences  given 
less  frequently  are:  whether  it  is  made  or  grows  (9  to  15); 
smoothness  (9  to  11);  method  of  cutting  (8  to  11);  shape  in 
which  it  comes  (9);  cost  (10  to  11);  bark  (11);  color  (12); 
whether  nails  can  be  driven  into  it  (9) ;  whether  it  is  usually 
painted  or  varnished  (13) ;  and  whether  it  becomes  soft  when 
left  in  water  (12). 

Part  (c) 

The  differences  between  paper  and  cloth  most  frequently 
given  are:  use,  114  times  (5  to  15);  ease  with  which  it  is  torn, 
44  times  (8  to  15);  possibility  of  writing  on  it,  20  times  (7  to 
15);  and  possibility  of  sewing  it,  10  times  (8  to  12).  Other 
differences  given  less  frequently  are:  thinness  (8  to  13); 
smoothness  (8  to  11);  whether  it  is  woven  or  pressed  (14  to  15); 
whether  it  burns  easily  (8  to  9);  what  it  is  made  from  (11); 
softness  (12);  cost  (12)  and  whether  it  washes  (8). 

From  this  we  see  that  the  differences  most  often  given  are  those 

of  appearance  and  use.     Differences  in  use  are  not  given  in  part 

(a)  because  the  use  of  the  two  is  the  same:  similarly  differences 

in  appearance  are  not  given  in  part  (c) . 
Test  10 

Part  (a) 

In  cases  where  partial  credit  was  given  there  were  156  defini- 
tions in  terms  of  use  (5  to  15)  and  23  definitions  (8  to  12) 
where  a  spoon  was  said  to  be  lead,  tin,  silver,  steel,  brass  or 
metal. 

Part  (fc) 

In  cases  where  partial  credit  was  given,  there  was  142  in 
terms  of  use  (5  to  15);  and  12  (8  to  11)  where  a  chair  was 
sa:d  to  be  wood. 

Part  (c) 

In  this  part  we  have  99  cases  (5  to  15)  in  terms  of  use.  and 
none  in  terms  of  material. 

Part  (d) 

In  this  part  there  were  a  great  many  statements  which  were 
classed  as  use,  although  they  were  often  merely  statements 
about  a  baby,  such  as  "what  you  rock,"  "take  care  of," 
"plays  all  the  time"  (5  to  11).  The  definition  "infant"  was 
given  36  times*(7  to  15).  There  were  no,  definitions  in  terms 
of  material. 
Test  11 

In  this  test  there  seems  to  be  no  tendency  for  errors  to  occur  in 


100  Point  Scale  Examinations 

the  comparison  of  any  particular  pair  of  lines. 
Test  12 

Part  (a) 

There  was  only  one  case  of  no  credit  for  the  square  (6). 

There  were  44  cases  of  half  credit  (5  to  12)  and  155  of  full 

credit  (5  to  15). 
Part  (6) 

There  were  22  cases  of  no  credit  for  the  diamond  (5  to  9); 

66  of  half  credit  (6  to  15);  and  112  of  full  credit  (7  to  15). 
It  is  evident,  of  course,  that  the  diamond  is  much  more  difficult 
than  the  square. 
Test  13 

In  this  test  there  were  43  cases  (5  to  15)  in  which  less  than  30 
words  were  given;  49  cases  (5  to  15)  of  30  to  44  words;  48  cases 
(8  to  13)  of  45  to  59  words;  34  cases  (8  to  15)  of  60  to  74  words; 
22  cases  (9  to  15)  of  75  to  99  words;  and  4  cases  (8  to  15)  of  over 
100  words. 
Test  14 

There  are  several  kinds  of  error  in  this  test.  Total  failure  to  give 
anything  there  were  34  cases  (5  to  11);  of  giving  three  separate 
sentences,  37  cases  (7  to  15);  of  using  only  two  of  the  words  12 
cases  (6  to  10);  of  using  only  one  word,  7  cases  (7  to  8);  and  of 
making  senseless  sentences  6  cases  (8  to  10). 

If  these  failures  are  arranged  in  order  of  the  average  mental 
age  of  the  subjects,  we  have:  no  sentence  and  only  one  word 
used  (7.7);    senseless  sentences  and  only  two  words  used  (8.7); 
and  three  sentences  given  (9.0). 
Test  15 

Typical  answers  for  the  different  mental  ages  are: 
Part  (a) 

(6)  "Hurry."     "Go  to  Boston."     "Get  on  another." 

(7)  "Telephone."     "Have  to   stay  there."     "Wait  for   an- 
other. " 

(8)  "Stay  and  wait  for  another."     "Walk." 

(9)  "  Wait  and  get  another. "     "  Take  electric  car. " 

(10)  "Ask  when  next  one  comes,"  and  other  correct  answers. 
Part  (b) 

(6)  "Very    sorry."     "Cry."     "Serve    them    back."     "Say 
Thank  you.'  : 

(7)  "Apologize. "     "Be  nice  to  them. "     "Say  I'm  sorry  too. " 

(8)  "Be   kind    to   them."     "Please  excuse  me."     "Forgive 
them." 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  107 


(9)  "Beg  their  pardon. "     "Say  all  right. "     "Forgive  them. " 
Part  (c) 

(6)  "  Cause  he's  disagreeable. "     "  He  steals. " 

(7)  "  He  don't  mean  all  he  says. "     "  Don't  know  any  better. " 

(8)  "  Give  him  another  trial. "     "  Might  be  telling  a  story. " 

(9)  "It's    meaner    than    saying."     "Shouldn't    judge    him." 
"Actions  are  more  than  what  he  says." 

(10)  "Sometimes   you   can't   always   believe   what   he   says." 
"What  he  does  you  can  see  him  doing  it."     "Judge  him  by 
looking  at  him,  can  tell  if  he's  telling  a  lie. " 

(11)  "Actions  speak  louder  than  words."     "Cause  you  can 
tell  better  by  what  he  does. " 

(12)  "Sometimes  people  say  what  they  don't  mean.     Their 
actions  show  more  than  what  they  say."     "Can  see  what 
they  do. " 

Part  (d) 

(6)  "Because    they're    always    disagreeable    and    cranky." 
"Tell  the  truth." 

(7)  "Because  we  don't  do  right."     "Cause  they  don't  know 
what  they're  doing." 

(8)  "Because   they're  rude."     "I   wouldn't."     "Give   them 
kind  words." 

(9)  "Because  we're  sorry."     "When    angry    don't  think  of 
the  things  you  do  as  quickly  as  when  you're  not  angry. " 

(10)  "Feel    more   sorry   for   them."     "With    anger,    he's   not 

really  responsible. " 
Test  16 

Part  (a) 

The  most  common  error  was  to  draw  the  figure  as  a  cube. 
The  reason  for  this  was  apparently  that  the  subjects  named 
the  figure  a  "box,"  and  then  afterward  drew  the  ordinary 
figure  of  a  box. 
Part  (6) 

There  was  no  error  which  appeared  more  often  than  other 
errors. 
Test  17 

Typical  answers  for  different  mental  ages  are: 
Part  (a) 

(6)  "Hands  in  pockets."     Repetitions  of  the  sentence. 

(7)  "Because  he  was  drinking."     "Silly."     "Hands  in  pock- 
ets." 


108  Josephine  N.  Curtis 


(8)  "Trying  to  show  off."     "Charlie  Chaplin."     "Anybody 
that  goes  by  don't  swing  their  cane." 

(9)  "No  gentleman  swings  his  cane."     "Looks  funny  on  the 
street."     Correct  answers. 

(10)  "Should  have  been  walking  sensible."     Correct  answers. 
Part  (6) 

(6)  "Fell  on  the  ground."     "Broke  his  legs." 

(7)  "He  cured  him."     "Went  too  fast." 

(8)  " He  hadn't  ought  to  have  been  riding. "     "If  he  had  been 
more  careful,  he  wouldn't  have  cut  himself."     "Died  before 
he  got  there,  maybe. " 

(9)  "Fell  on  his  head.     Don't  often  see  people  falling  on  their 
heads. "     Correct  answers. 

(10)  Correct  answers. 
Part  (c) 

(6)  Repetition  of  sentence.     No  response. 

(7)  "Paul."     "Should  say  self  last." 

(8)  "Three  different   brothers;   wasn't  the   same  brothers." 
"Should  have  said  I." 

(9)  "If  it  was  a  girl,  he  had  only  two  brothers  and  a  girl." 
"Trying  to  make  you  think  he  had  an  extra  brother." 

Part  (d)  ^ 

(6)  Total  failure. 

(7)  Total  failure. 

(8)  "Funny  place  to  inquire."     " Passed  the  road. " 

(9)  "Shouldn't  go  to  the  blacksmith,  should  go  to  the  station. " 
"Wasn't  any  blacksmith  there." 

(10)  "They  don't  teach  you  to  read  at  the  blacksmith-shop." 
Correct  answers. 

(11)  "Should  inquire  at  the  post-office."     "Ask  one  of  the 
people  that's  walking  on  the  street."     Correct  answers. 

Part  (e) 

(6)  Total  failure 

(7)  Total  failure 

(8)  Total  failure 

(9)  "Why  should  they?"     "Safer  in  the  last  car  than  in  the 
first."     "If  one  falls,  they  all  go."     "Last  car  can't  leave 
off;     it's     a    baggage     car." 

(10)  "If  last  car  is  more  damaged,  it's  better  to  leave  it  off." 
"Have  to  leave  it  off  before  it  gets  damaged."  Correct  an- 
swers. 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  109 


(11)  "Anyone  amongst  them   is   damaged  enough."     "They 
think  the  last  car  will  slip  off."     Correct  answers. 

(12)  "Front  car  would  be  most  in  danger,  it  has  to  follow  where 
the  train  goes."     Correct  answers. 

Test  18 

Part  (a) 

The  sentence  most  frequently  given  was  "  I  asked  my  teacher 
to  correct  the  paper."  This  was  given  50  times  (8  to  15); 
"I  asked  the  teacher  to  correct  my  paper"  was  given  18 
times  (8  to  15);  "I  asked  my  teacher  to  correct  my  paper" 
17  times  (8  to  15);  "I  asked  the  teacher  to  correct  the  paper" 
twice  (9  to  12). 

Part  (6) 

In  this  part  the  sentences  "A  good  dog  defends  his  master 
bravely"  and  "A  good  dog  bravely  defends  his  master"  were 
given  30  times  (10  to  15);  "A  good  master  bravely  defends 
his  dog"  5  times  (12  to  15).  Correct  sentences  in  which 
"good"  modifies  the  second  noun  used,  such  as  "A  master 
defends  his  good  dog  bravely"  and  sentences  in  which  "his" 
modifies  the  first  noun,  such  as  "His  dog  defends  a  good 
master  bravely"  were  given  6  times  (8  to  15). 

Part  (c) 

In  this  part  "We  started  at  an  early  hour  for  the  park"  and 
"We  started  for  the  park  at  an  early  hour"  were  given  33 
times;  "We  started  early  at  the  park  for  an  hour"  3  times 
(10  to  12);  and  "We  started  at  the  park  for  an  early  hour" 
twice  (11). 
Test  19 

Typical  answers  for  this  test  are: 

Part  (a) 

(6)  "Sitting   on."     "Sister."     "Give   anything   away    what 
you    have. " 

(7)  "Haven't  got  no  home."     "When  you  go  any  place." 
"To  help  the  people." 

(8)  "Bird."  "Little  wagon."  "Carriage."  "Person  ain't 
got  no  home,  on  charity. " 

(9)  "Poor  people."  "They  have  meetings."  "Be  good  to 
a  person."  "Love  to  God."  "State  Board  of  Charity  be 
'guardeens.' 

(10)  "Kindness."     "To  be  good."     Correct  answers. 

(11)  "Doing  some  kind  act."     Correct  answers. 


110  Point  Scale  Examinations 

(12)  "  Doing  good  for  somebody,  help  them. "     Correct  answers. 
Part  (6) 

(6)  "Priest."     "Don't  obey,  ask." 

(7)  "Do  something  that's  right."     "Don't  know  how  to  be- 
have   yourself."     "To    obey    your    teachers." 

(8)  "Bad."     "When  you  don't  mind."     "Some  kind  of  a 
bird."     "To  be  good." 

(9)  "Rough."     "Be  polite."     "True."     Correct  answers. 
(10)  "Law  and  liberty.     Be  good  and  kind. "     Correct  answers. 

Part  (c) 

(6)  "Minister."     "Hope."     "Don't  ask  for  anything." 

(7)  "  Be  good. "     "  When  you  can  do  things. " 

(8)  "Be  bad."     "Don't  digest  your  food."     "Be  honest  and 
careful  what  you  do." 

(9)  "Do  what's  right."     "Do  just  what  you're  supposed  to 
do."     "Peace,  be  kind  to  horses  and  animals." 

(10)  "When  a  man  is  arrested,  put  him  in  justice."     "The 
law."     "To  have  peace."     Correct  answers. 

(11)  "Be  kind."     " Doing  right. "     Correct  answers. 

(12)  "  Have  peace. "     "  In  court. "     Correct  answers. 

In  this  test,  on  the  whole  we  get  at  the  younger  mental  ages  a 
confusion  of  the  abstract  term  with  some  similar  concrete  term 
such  as  "Carriage"  (Chariot?)  with  "Charity;"  "Priest"  with 
"Obedience;"  and  "Digestion"  with  "Justice."  At  higher  men- 
tal ages,  we  find  definitions  which  show  some  inkling  of  the  real 
meaning,  such  as,  "Haven't  any  home"  for  "Charity;"  "To  be 
good"  for  "Obedience;"  and  "The  law"  for  "Justice." 
Test  20 

Part  (a) 

Of  the  possible  correct  answers,  "peel"  was  given  100  times 
(7  to  15),  and  "peeling"  6  times  (11).  Probably  the  reason 
that  "peel"  is  more  common  and  given  at  lower  ages  than 
"peeling"  is  that  it  may  be  used  as  a  verb  and  the  younger 
children  tend  to  take  the  "to"  in  the  analogy  as  the  beginning 
of  an  infinitive.  Among  the  incorrect  answers  we  have  50 
verbs  (8  to  15) ;  6  nouns  (5  to  12) ;  1  adjective  referring  to  the 
second  half  of  the  analogy  (8)  "yellow;"  and  1  answer  which 
relates  to  the  first  part  of  the  analogy  (6)  "Oyster  goes  in 
with  cracker. " 
Part  (b) 

In  this  part  "knee"  was  given  40  times  (7  to  15);  verbs  100 
times  (5  to  15);  nouns  referring  to  the  second  part  52  times 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  111 


(8  to  15);  and  nouns  referring  to  the  first  part  5  times  (6  to 
9). 
Part  (c) 

In  this  part  "glove(s)"  was  given  43  times  (9  to  15);  "mit- 
tens" 2  times  (9);  verbs  94  times  (5  to  15);  nouns  relating  to 
the  second  part  40  times  (8  to  15) ;  words  relating  to  the  first 
part  9  times  (5  to  10). 
Part  (d) 

In  this  part  "crooked  line"  was  given  15  times  (8  to  15); 
"crooked"  5  times  (9  to  15);  "crooked  one"  4  times  (11  to 
15);  "uneven  line"  once  (12);  "round  one"  once  (12); 
"curve"  once  (14);  verbs  31  times  (6  to  11);  nouns  relating 
to  the  second  part  7  times  (9  to  12);  words  relating  to  the 
first  part  58  times  (6  to  13). 
Part  (e) 

In  this  part  "absent"  was  given  8  times  (9  to  15);  "future" 
7  times  (9  to  12);  "be  absent"  once  (8);  "past"  14  times 
(9  to  15).  There  was  some  confusion  between  "present" 
meaning  time,  and  "present"  meaning  gift.  Of  words  re- 
lating to  time,  there  were  21  verbs  (8  to  11)  and  15  nouns 
(9  to  15).  Of  words  relating  to  a  gift,  there  were  16  verbs 
(7  to  14);  11  nouns  (9  to  12).  There  were  32  words  relating 
to  the  first  part  of  the  analogy  (6  to  12). 
Part  (/) 

In  this  part  "peace"  was  given  39  times  (8  to  15);  "have 

peace"  2  times  (9  to  10);  "be  in  peace"  once  (9);  and  "make 

peace"  once   (11).     Of  words  relating  to  the  second  part, 

there  were  108  verbs,  of  which  "fight"  was  given  44  times 

(6  to  13);  "cease"  22  times  (8  to  13);  "stop"  15  times  (8  to 

15)  nouns  5  times  (8  to  12);  and  adjectives  8  times  (9  to  15). 

There  were  23  words  given  relating  to  the  first  part  (5  to  11). 

Throughout  this  test  we  find  that  in  the  incorrect  answers  verbs 

are  given  more  often  and  at  younger  mental  ages  than  other  parts 

of  speech,  nouns  come  next  and  then  adjectives.     Part  (e)  gives 

the  greatest  variety  of  replies,  probably  because  there  is  no  verb 

which  is  readily  associated  with  "present." 


112  Point  Scale  Examination* 


APPENDIX  B 

TYPICAL   ANSWERS   TO    POINT   SCALE   QUESTIONS   AND    THEIR 
EVALUATION 

Test  No.  7  (a): 

Full  Credit  (3):  "Man  and  boy.     He's  pulling  that  cart,  got  it 

loaded  with  something,  pulling  hard."     "Man  trying  to  pull  it 

up."     "Ain't  got  no  horse."     "Looks  as  if  it  was  going  to  tip 

over."     "Raining.     Boy's   father   pulling   load   of   furniture   up 

hill."     "Peddlar's   cart.     Man   sells   things.     Boy   helps   him." 

"Have  no  horse.     Must  be  kind  of  poor,  in  war,  bringing  their 

furniture  with  them.     Neither  look  very  intelligent."     "Heavy 

load.     Men  tired."     "Seem  to  be  moving." 

Credit  of  2:  "Man  and  boy  dragging  cart."     "Hay  or  something 

in  team.     Two  men  pulling  it."     "Pulling  team  up.     It's  kind 

of  tipping  over.     Man  and  boy."     "Pulling  load  of  furniture  on 

wagon." 

Credit  of  1:  "Man  and  boy, furniture, baskets,  rain,  post,  tables.'* 

etc. 

Test  No.      (b): 

Full  credit  (3):  "Man  sleeping,  lady  thinking."  "He's  sick  or 
dying,  she  is  taking  hold  of  his  arm."  "People  look  poor." 
"  That  lady  shouldn't  be  there. "  "  Man  must  be  dead. "  "  Man 
looks  as  if  he  was  trying  to  help  that  woman. "  "  Man  and  woman 
side  of  the  road.  Man  older  than  woman."  "She  looks  cold." 
"Man  making  love  on  a  settee."  "Man  lost  his  hat."  "Man 
looks  dead.  Must  be  his  daughter. "  "  Must  be  without  a  home, 
poor,  man  sick.  Woman  trying  to  tell  what  is  the  matter  with 
him,  both  sad."  "Out  of  work,  hungry,  poor."  "Man  sleep- 
ing." 

Credit  of  2:  "Sitting  down  on  a  settee."  "Lady  sitting  on  a 
settee.  Man  side  of  her."  "Lady  and  man.  Lady  holding  on 
to  man's  arms."  "In  a  park.  Old  man  and  woman  sitting  on  a 
bench.  Hat  on  ground." 

Credit  of  1:  "Man  and  woman,  trees,  and  snow."  "Man  and 
lady." 

Test  No.  7  (c): 

Full  credit  (3}:  "Standing  up  to  trees  in  a  house  where  they  are 
camping  out."  "Looking  out  window  for  someone."  "Watch- 
ing to  see  if  his  wife  is  coming  home."  "Prisoned  in."  "He 
fell  asleep  standing  up. "  "Peeking  out  the  window."  "Stand- 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  113 


ing  up.     Lonesome.     Looking  out  the  window."     "Standing  as 

if  saying  prayers. " 

Credit  of  2:  "Standing  up  looking  out  window."     "Man  looking 

in   a  glass."     "Climbing   up   a  tree."     "Fixing   the   window." 

"Man  reading." 

Credit  of  1:  "Telephone,  chair,  book."     "Man,  chair,  box,  two 

tables. " 

General  Rules  for  Grading  Test  No.  7 

For  simple  enumeration,  whether  all  articles  are  named  correctly 
or  not,  give  1  point.  As  for  example  in  (b),  subjects  will  sometimes 
say  "two  men"  or  "two  women"  instead  of  a  man  and  a  woman. 

For  simple  description,  statements  about  the  position  of  persons 
or  objects,  statements  of  color,  or  any  statement  concerning  anything 
that  can  be  seen,  give  2  points. 

For  a  "story"  about  the  picture,  any  statement  that  implies  any 
sense  than  sight  (as,  for  example,  statements  of  temperature,  or  sound), 
statements  about  something  that  has  happened  before  or  is  to  happen 
after  the  moment  at  which  the  picture  is  taken,  statements  concerning 
the  feelings  of  persons,  or  of  the  relationship  between  persons,  give  3 
points. 

Doubtful  causes.  Some  statements  which  would  surely  be  inter- 
pretation when  given  by  an  older  person,  are  probably  mere  enumera- 
tion when  given  by  children.  As,  for  example,  "old  man"  and  "grand- 
father." In  such  cases,  do  not  grade  until  you  have  read  answers 
given  for  other  parts  of  this  test.  If  the  other  parts  give  enumeration, 
count  the  doubtful  case  as  enumeration;  if  they  give  interpretation, 
count  the  doubtful  as  interpretation. 
Test  No.  9  (a) : 

Give  credit  for  such  differences  as:  "Apple  round,  banana  long." 
"Apple  red,  banana  yellow."  "Apple  sometimes  red,  sometimes 
green,  banana  sometimes  yellow,  sometimes  red."  "Apple 
harder  than  banana."  "You  peel  a  banana  with  your  fingers, 
have  to  peel  an  apple  with  knife. "  "  Banana  sweeter  than  apple. " 
"You  can  eat  the  skin  of  an  apple,  can't  of  a  banana.  "Skin  of  a 
banana  is  thicker."  "Can  get  banana  all  the  year,  apple  only 
part  of  the  year."  "Apple  has  stem,  banana  doesn't."  "Apple 
has  core,  banana  doesn't."  "Banana  grows  in  bunches,  apple 
doesn't."  "Apple  is  juicier  than  a  banana."  "Apple  weighs 
more  than  a  banana."  "Apple  grows  in  cold  climate,  banana  in 
warm."  "Make  cider  of  apples,  not  of  bananas."  "Apple 

easier  to  digest." 

library  «f 

jtotarl  Jauima 


114  Point  Scale  Examinations 

Test  No.  9  (b): 

Give  credit  for  such  differences  as:  "Glass  is  transparent,  wood  is 
not."  "Wood  burns,  glass  does  not."  "Glass  breaks  easier 
than  wood."  "Wood  grows,  glass  is  made."  "Use  wood  for 
houses,  etc.,  glass  for  windows,  etc."  "Wood  gets  soft  in  water, 
glass  does  not. "  "  Glass  is  more  expensive  than  wood. "  "  Wood 
is  brown,  glass  is  no  color  (or  white)."  "Glass  generally  comes 
in  flat  sheet,  wood  in  blocks."  "Wood  has  bark,  glass  hasn't." 
"W7ood  is  generally  painted  or  varnished,  glass  isn't."  "Can 
drive  nails  into  wood,  can't  into  glass. " 

Test  No.  9  (c) : 

Give  credit  for  such  differences  as  "Paper  tears  more  easily  than 
cloth."  "Cloth  is  woven,  paper  is  pressed."  "You  can  write 
on  paper,  can't  on  cloth."  "Can  sew  on  cloth,  can't  on  paper." 
"Cloth  is  for  clothes,  paper  for  wrapping."  "Paper  is  generally 
smoother  than  cloth."  "Cloth  is  more  expensive  than  paper." 
"Cloth  washes,  paper  doesn't.  "  "Cloth  is  generally  thicker 
than  paper."  "Paper  is  made  from  wood  or  rags,  cloth  from 
threads."  "W7hen  you  crumple  up  cloth,  can  smooth  it  out 
again,  can't  paper."  "Paper  burns  more  easily  than  cloth." 
Give  no  credit  for  "Paper  is  white  and  cloth  is  white."  "You 
can  write  on  paper,  well,  you  can  write  on  cloth  too. " 
Doubtful:  "Apple  is  red.  Banana  is  long."  If  the  subject  implies 
the  opposite,  give  credit  (this  happens  often  with  average  adults). 
It  the  opposite  is  not  implied,  do  not  give  credit.  This  answer  of 
course  does  not  show  as  logical  a  train  of  thought  as  when  the 
differences  are  paired  off.  Count  such  as  "You  can  write  on 
paper,  and  you  can  sew  on  cloth"  as  one  difference, — that  of  use; 
but  count  "You  can  write  on  paper,  and  you  can't  on  cloth. 
You  can  sew  on  cloth,  but  not  on  paper, "  as  two  differences. 

Test  No.  10  (a) : 

Full  credit(%):  "Silverware."  "Piece  of  silver."  "Article  used 
to  eat  with."  "Instrument  used  to  eat  with."  "Long  and 
round  at  top,  cylindrical,  use  to  eat  with,  and  measure  by. " 
Half  credit  (1):  "What  you  eat  out  of."  "Stir  things  with." 
"Silver."  "Tin."  "You  can  eat  from  it.  It  is  silver."  "Little 
lead  thing."  "Round." 

Test  No.  10  (b) : 

Full  credit  (2):  "Piece  of  furniture."     "Wrood  ware."     "Article 
you  sit  on."     "Four  legs  and  four  rounds,  back  and  seat  to  sit 
on. "     "  Wooden  object. " 
Half  credit  (1):  "What  you  sit  on."     "Have  four  legs,  sit  on." 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  115 


"Wood."  "Made  of  wood,  four  legs."  "Wooden  chair  with 
soft  cushions."  "One  kind  of  chair  is  different,  rocking-chair." 

Test  No.  10  (c): 

Full  credit  (2) :  "  Animal. "  "  Domestic  animal. "  "  Quadruped.-" 
"Beast  of  burden."  "Four  legs,  tail,  two  eyes,  mouth  and  nose 
that  eats. " 

Half  credit  (1):  "What  you  drive."  "To  ride  on  a  team." 
" Four  legs,  ears. "  "What  ploughs  and  does  farm  work. "  "To 
work  with. " 

Test  No.  10  (d): 

Full  credit  (2):  "Creature,  two  legs,  and  head  just  like  we  are." 
"Human  being."  "Small  child."  "Child  under  three  or  four 
years."  "Little  boy  or  girl." 

Half  credit  (1):  "What  you  rock."  "Crying."  "Small  and 
horse  is  bigger."  "Infant."  "To  creep  on  floor."  "To  care 
for."  "Litffe  boy  to  your  mother."  "Grows  up,  gets  big  all 
the  time."  "Nurse  looks  after  the  baby."  "Belongs  to  a 
mother. " 

General  Directions  for  Grading  Test  No.  10 

Give   full   credit   for   classification,   or  for   detailed   description. 
Give  half  credit  for  definitions  in  terms  of  use  or  in  terms  of  some 
attribute  of  the  object  as  "baby  cries,"  or  for  words  which  are  prac- 
tically synonymous  as  "infant"  or  for  meagre  description. 
Test  No.  14: 

Full  credit  (4) :  "I  went  to  Boston  to  see  the  pretty  river  and  spent 
most  of  my  money."  "I  am  going  to  Boston  to  spend  some 
money  on  the  river."  "I  lost  some  money  in  the  river  going 
through  Boston."  "I  went  to  Boston  shopping  and  had  enough 
money  left  to  go  on  the  Charles  river  canoeing."  "The  Boston 
money  works  is  near  a  river. " 

Half  credit  (2):  "I  went  to  Boston  to  my  Father  to  get  some 
money  and  I  saw  someone  fall  in  the  river. "  "  Boston  is  a  money- 
making  place  and  which  a  river  passes  near."  "To  go  to  Boston 
you  have  to  have  money  and  you  cross  the  Charles  river."  "Bos- 
ton has  got  a  lot  of  money  in  the  state  and  the  river  is  out  in  the 
ocean."  "I  am  going  to  Boston  to  get  some  money  next  week; 
I  am  going  to  the  river  today. " 

Wo  credit:  "I  went  to  Boston  one  day  to  spend  money."  "I  go 
to  Boston  and  bring  money  and  saw  a  lady  fall  in  the  river. " 


116  Paint  Scale  Examinations 

General  Rules  for  Grading  Test  No.  14 

Give  full  credit  for  a  single  sentence  containing  all  three  words 
when  sentence  does  not  have  verbs  connected  by  "and."  If  the  verbs 
are  connected  by  "and"  give  full  credit  if  the  connection  of  the  sense 
is  very  close.  "Boston"  may  be  used  as  an  adjective.  The  sentence 
does  not  have  to  be  true.  Give  half  credit  for  two  separate  sentences 
or  two  which  are  loosely  connected.  If  three  sentences  are  given  and 
the  three  words  are  used  in  two  of  these  three,  give  half  credit.  A 
loosely  connected  sentence  in  which  two  of  the  verbs  have  different 
subjects  should  receive  two.  Give  no  credit  when  only  two  words  are 
used,  even  if  these  two  are  used  in  one  sentence. 
Test  No.  15  (a) : 

Full  credit  (2) :  "  Look  for  another  train.  Wait  at  depot. "  "  Take 
electric  car."  "As  what  time  the  next  train  went."  "Take  a 
taxi."  "Telephone." 

Half  credit  (1):  "Go  any  place  at  all."  "Have  to  stay  there." 
"Wait  till  it  comes  back."  "Take  a  watch  to  see  how  many 
minutes."  "Go  home." 

No  credit:  " Run  for  it. "     " Hurry. "     "Go  to  Boston. " 
Test  No.  15  (b): 

Full  credit  (2):  "Forgive  them."  "Pardon  them."  "Be  nice 
to  them."  "Tell  them  all  right  and  not  do  it  again."  "Do  to 
them  as. you'd  like  them  to  do  to  you."  "Make  up  with  them 
again. " 

Half  credit   (1):  "Serve  them  back."     "Go  up  and  tell  them 
you   feel    tie   same."     "Like   them."     "Say   welcome."     "Do 
nothing."     "Let  them  go."     "Pay  no  attention  to  them." 
No  credit:  "Thank  you."     "Apologize."     "Be  sorry  to  them." 
"Take  it  back." 
Test  No.  15  (c) : 

Full  credit  (2):  "He  don't  mean  all  he  says."  "Things  he  did 
more  accountable  than  wl  at  he  says.  Perhaps  what  he'd  tell 
you  wouldn't  be  true. "  "  Can  tell  by  their  actions  and  by  the 
way  they  say  it  whetl  er  they  mean  it  or  not. "  "  Might  do  some- 
thing he  said  he  wasn't  going  to."  "Can  see  wl  at  they  do." 
Half  credit  (1) :  "you  can  judge  people  by  their  actions,  can  tell  by 
what  they  do."  "Actions  speak  louder  than  words."  "When 
he  acts  it,  it  shows  more  gratitude."  "He  does  more  than  he 
says." 

No  credit:  "Cause  he's  disagreeable."  "Should  judge  him  in 
his  ways."  "See  for  yourself  what  he  does,  can  mostly  tell  when 


Josephine  N.  Curtis  117 


a  person  is  all  right  and  when  they're  in  wrong."     "Supposed  to 
do  the  right  thing."     "Shouldn't  judge  them  at  all." 
Test  No.  15  (d): 

Full  credit  (2):  "Think  they  don't  mean  it.  they're  in  such  a 
temper."  "When  they  did  it,  they  didn't  stop  to  think;  when 
they're  not  in  anger,  they  plan  to  do  it. " 

Half  credit  (1) :  "When  they  mean  a  thing,  don't  forgive  them." 
No  credit:  "Because  they  apologize  and  think  more  of  it. "     "One 
might  be  done  by  accident;  one  with  anger  means  to  do  it." 
"Better  to  do  things  without  anger." 

General  Rules  for  Grading  Test  No.  15 

Give  full  credit  for  full,  logical  answers;  and  for  incomplete  an- 
swers in  some  cases  where  the  remainder  is  implied,  as  "  Can  see  what 
they  do. "     Give  half  credit  for  answers  which  show  some  slight  grasp 
on  the  whole  situation. 
Test  No.  17  (a): 

Full  credit:  "  Couldn't  swing  cane  with  hands  in  pockets. "     "  Can't 
have  hands  in  pocket  and  swing  cane  unless  he  had  cane  on  his 
arm. " 
Test  No.  17  (b): 

Full  credit:  "If  he  was  dead,  taking  him  to  the  hospital  wouldn't 
do  any  good. "     "If  he's  killed,  can't  get  well. " 
Test  No.  17  (c): 

Full  credit:  "Trying  to  make  you  think  he  had  an  extra  brother." 
"  Couldn't  be  a  'brother  to  himself. "     "Only  had  two. " 
Test  No.  17  (d) : 

Full  credit:  "If  they  can't  read  the  first  sentence,  they  can't  read 
about  the  blacksmith."     "Who  was  there  to  tell  him  to  inquire 
at  the  blacksmith  shop?     The  post  couldn't  tell  him."     "If  you 
couldn't  read,  how  could  you  read  it  at  all?" 
Test  No.  17  (e): 

Full  credit:  "If  they  left  the  last  one  off,  the  one  next  to  the  last 
would  be  in  as  much  danger."     "There  would  always  be  a  last 
car. " 
Test  No.  18  (a) : 

Full  credit:  "I  asked  the  teacher  to  correct  my  paper."     "I  asked 
my  teacher  to  correct  the  paper."     "The  teacher  I  asked  to  cor- 
rect my  paper. " 
Test  No.  18  (b) : 

Full  credit:  "A  master  defends  his  good  dog  bravely."     "A  dog 
defends  his  good  master  bravely,  etc." 


118  Point  Scale  Examinations 


Test  No.  18  (c) : 

Full  credit:  "We  started  for  the  park  at  an  early  hour."  "We 
started  early  for  an  hour  at  the  park."  "We  started  for  the 
park  at  an  hour  early."  "We  started  early  at  an  hour  for  the 
park. " 

General  Directions  for  Grading  Test  No.  18 

Give  full  credit  for  any  English  sentence  containing  all  the  given 

words  and  no  other  words. 

Test  No.  19  (a): 

Full  credit:  "Take  pity  on  people  that  ain't  got  no  homes." 
"Anybody  is  poor  and  ain't  got  no  home,  the  charity  helps  them 
along."  "To  give  to  the  needy."  "When  you  look  out  for  a 
poor  person."  "Love  for  the  poor."  "Society  to  take  little 
wanderers  and  put  them  in  homes." 

No  credit:  'Give  anything  away  that  you  have."  "People  have 
kind  of  society  and  help."  "To  do  anything  for  anybody  for 
nothing."  "  Love  toward  your  neighbor. "  "Helping."  "Kind- 
ness. " 

Test  No.  19  (b) : 

Full  credit:  "Mind  the  attendant,  what  they  say."  "To  mind." 
"Do  what  you  are  told." 

Test  No.  19  (c): 

Full  credit:  "  Do  right  by  others. "     "  Treat  everybody  the  same. " 

"To  be  fair  and  square  with  everybody."     "To  give  one  person 

his  rights."     "Not  to  let  one  do  what  vou  wouldn't  let  another 

do." 

No  credit:  "To  do  as  you'd  be  done  by."     "Doing  right."     "To 

do  right."     "The  law." 


THE  ILLUSION  OF  LEVITATION 

Part  Two:  Clinical  Aspects 

LYDIARD    H.    HORTON 

Foreword 

In  this  second  section  it  is  intended  to  furnish  a  more  definite  picture 
of  the  Illusion  of  Levitation  than  was  presented  in  the  first  outline.  This 
is  done  by  a  second  letter  to  Dr.  Prince,  which  amplifies  the  first. 

The  instances  quoted  are  taken  from  the  case  histories  of  subjects 
studied  by  the  writer  at  various  institutions  in  New  York  City,  including 
the  Post  Graduate  Hospital,  the  Vanderbilt  Clinic,  the  Physiological 
Laboratory  at  P.  &  S.,  and  the  Laboratory  of  the  Department  of  Psy- 
chology at  Columbia. 

In  observations  of  this  kind  upon  the  phases  of  sleep,  it  has  been  a 
most  helpful  and  steadying  circumstance  that  a  student  like  Morton  Prince 
should  have  stood  ready  to  give  aid  and  counsel. 

Dr.  Prince  has  realized  that  Abnormal  Psychology  demands  of  its 
devotees  that  they  shall  be  willing  to  examine  the  "improbabilities"  of 
mystical  belief  as  well  as  to  follow  the  "safe  and  sane"  paths  of  staid 
laboratory  demonstrations.  To  emphasize  this  open-mindedness,  to  which 
I  pay  tribute  now,  Dr.  Prince's  own  words  may  be  quoted  from  the  cor- 
respondence:— 

In  this  connection  do  not  let  yourself  be  hoodooed  by  any  set  of 
"authorities"  with  whose  views  your  observations  are  not  in  accord. 
Make  your  own  observations  and  so  long  as  they  are  accurate  and 
incontestable  you  have  nothing  to  fear.  Be  careful  only  not  to  force 
interpretations  beyond  what  the  facts  warrant. 

With  due  respect  both  to  those  who  insist  upon  adventuring  into 
mystical  realms,  and  to  those  who  sedulously  abstain  therefrom,  the  natural 
history  of  the  Illusion  of  Levitation  will  be  carried  through  to  a  physio- 
logical analysis  in  the  next  instalment. 

The  statement  below  Is  intended  to  bring  out  the  salient  features  of 
the  Illusion  of  Levitation  when  it  is  dependent  upon  phenomena  of  general 
relaxation  and  of  sleep. 


119 


120    •  The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


COLUMBIA.  UNIVERSITY, 

JUNE  6,  1912 

My  dear  Dr.  Prince: 

As  a  post-script  to  my  letter  of  April  17,  let  me  submit  a 
few  examples  in  connection  with  the  process  of  relaxation  that 
I  described. 

Lately,  having  again  taken  up  these  experiments  I  have 
had  my  attention  called  at  various  times  to  analogies  between 
the  state  of  relaxation  as  produced  or  induced  experimentally 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  to  certain  peculiar  states 
that  occur  spontaneously.  The  analogies  are  not  so  much  per- 
ceived by  me  as  they  are  suggested  to  me  by  those  on  whom  I 
have  experimented  or  with  whom  I  have  talked  over  the  method 
and  its  results.1 

"PROJECTION"  OF  SENSATIONS 

Case  80.  A  Jewish  boy  of  19  treated  for  anxiety  neurosis. 
As  a  means  of  helping  him  to  sleep  I  taught  him  how  to  relax, 
using  the  usual  dialectic  method  and  adding  a  few  exercises  for 
relaxing  the  eye-muscles.  He  proved  a  very  good  subject  and 
presently  experienced  the  sensations  and  changes  of  muscular 
tonus  that  I  wrote  of  in  the  foregoing  letter.  At  the  onset  of 
the  sensations  he  said:  "I  have  felt  like  this  before;  it  used  to 
come  over  me,  this  feeling;  but  I  was  scared  of  it  and  used  to 
try  to  make  it  go  away."  When  I  explained  the  matter  to 
him  as  merely  a  by-product  of  rest,  he  was  perfectly  willing  to 
continue  in  the  existing  state  of  ease  and  even  seemed  to  think 
it  wonderfully  agreeable.  Wishing  to  impress  the  sensations 
upon  him  I  said,  more  forcibly  than  accurately:  "I  want  you  to 
remember  what  you  have  done  now,  so  that  you  can  rest  like 
this  again.  Don't  forget  how  you  did  this. "  To  which  the  boy 
responded:  "How  should  I  forget  how  to  do  this,  when  it  is  not 
me  that  is  doing  it?"  "Who  is  doing  it?"  "I  don't  know,  it 
just  comes  of  itself." 

ALARMING  WAVE  CHARACTER 

I  mention  this  incident  to  illustrate  the  projec'ed  character 
of  the  sensations  in  question.  To  be  sure  the  projection  in  this 
case  is  not  very  marked,  but  still  there  is  a  suggestion  as  if  a 
foreign  influence  were  exerting  itself  upon  the  person.  In  my 
earlier  experiments  this  was  more  marked.  One  subject  who 

1This  method  has  ftr  years,  among  my  co-workers  and  subjects,  borne  the  name  ''Acopic 
Method" — from  the  Greek  (alpha  privative  and  kopos  fatigue)  meaning  anti-fatigue.  See  Cen- 
ury  Dictionary. 


Lydiard  H.  Horton 


learned  to  relax  very  completely  was  very  much  impressed  with 
the  sensations  in  relaxation.  He  actually  argued  with  me  at 
one  time  that  they  must  really  represent  the  influx  of  some  force. 
In  another  case  a  man  describes  his  experience  in  the  following 
terms:  "There  were  waves  in  the  room;  it  was  as  if  the  air  were 
in  vibration,  and  I  thought  that  it  seemed  to  be  a  force  that 
placed  me  in  communication  with  a  certain  patient  whom  I  had 
asked  to  relax  at  the  same  time.  It  was  the  most  extraordinary 
experience  I  ever  had  and  caused  me  to  be  alarmed  about  con- 
tinuing this  work. " 

The  former  was  a  lawyer  of  the  highest  intelligence  and  the 
latter  was  a  clergyman,  who  had  done  a  little  psychotherapy 
and  who  had  tried  "absent  treatment"  in  its  non-mystical  form; 
I  mean  encouraging  a  patient  to  relax  and  think  thoughts  of 
health,  while  the  healer  by  appointment  was  relaxing  and  medi- 
tating in  another  place. 

But  let  me  go  on  with  cases 
more  in  point. 

Case  96.  A  psychologist, 
instructor  in  one  of  the  big  Uni- 
versities. He  had  been  my  sub- 
ject in  experiments  conducted 
by  me  in  1910.  Lately,  in  dis- 
cussing the  method  of  relaxation 
he  said:  "I  meant  to  tell  you 
about  a  sort  of  waking  dream 
that  I  used  to  have.  I  would  be 
lying  on  the  bed  and  I  would 
see  a  large  heavy  piano  that  we 
had,  floating  in  the  air.  This 
was  when  I  was  a  kid,  ten  or 
eleven.  I  would  imagine  I  saw 
this  piano  getting  larger  and 
larger  and  soaring  in  the  air 
above  me.  And  I  would  be 
afraid  that  it  was  going  to  fall 
and  I  would  cry  out  and  the 
family  would  not  know  what  was 

the  matter  with  me,  for  I  could  not  seem  to  tell  them. 
Presently  the  piano  would  stop  getting  larger  and  would  seem 
to  fall  and  I  wou!d  expect  that  there  would  be  a  great  crash 
but  it  never  came.  Then  the  thing  would  pass  away. " 


EXTERNALIZED    ILLUSION    OF 
LEVITATION 


The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


SENSATIONS    OF    SWELLING    AND    RISING 

Case  88.  A  woman,  graduate  student  in  biology.  She 
took  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  my  experiments  and  wanted  to 
hear  all  about  the  different  stages  of  relaxation,  (which  is  in- 
formation I  do  not  give  to  those  who  are  to  be  my  subjects}. 
Although  not  a  subject,  she  gave  me  the  following  description  of 
similar  sensations  she  had  had:  "I  used  to  feel  myself  beginning 
to  swell  and  it  would  bother  me,  because  I  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  it.  I  seemed  to  get  larger  and  larger  as  if  I  would 
never  stop  expanding.  But  presently  it  would  stop  and  things 
would  become  natural  again.  I  have  asked  my  doctor  about  it, 
but  I  have  never  found  anyone  wrho  understood  it,  except  one 
woman  who  had  the  same  sort  of  experience.  We  exchanged 
notes  on  the  subject.  It  was  very  curious  and  used  to  come 
quite  often."  "Was  it  pleasant?"  uYes,  it  was  pleasant, 
except  that  it  was  so  queer."  "Do  you  have  it  now?"  "No, 
I  have  not  had  it  for  several  years.  " 

Case  101.  In  my  own  case  on  one  occasion  I  dreamed  of 
seeing  a  golf-ball  soaring  in  the  air,  and  rising  in  a  beautiful  loft- 
ing curve  above  a  bunker  surrounded  by  water.  I  seemed  to 
be  accompanying  the  golf-ball  in  its  flight,  as  if  I  wrere  in  some 
way  identified  with  the  ball.  I  could  see  the  ball  and  the  chang- 
ing vista  beneath  us,  but  I  was  not  there  in  propria  persona.  In 
the  next  part  of  the  dream  I  wras  crudely  impersonating  a  golf- 
ball  propelling  itself  through  a  muddy  golf  course.  I  omit  the 
symbolism  of  the  second  part  wishing  merely  to  point  out  the 
two  degrees  of  impersonation  in  the  dream.  In  the  first  part  of 
the  dream  the  flying  sensation  or  levitation  illusion  was  very 
marked  and  seems  to  account  for  the  partial  projection  of  the 
illusion,  so  that  it  is  not  exactly  I,  but  rather  the  golf-ball,  to 
which  the  flight  is  ascribed. 

THE    SENSATIONS    BEREFT    OF    ILLUSION 

In  earlier  cases  I  have  experienced  the  floating  sensation 
while  relaxation  was  in  progress  and  while  perfectly  oriented 
otherwise.  Its  onset  was  brought  about  by  a  deliberate  process 
of  relaxation  but  without  any  expectation  of  the  illusion  of  soar- 
ing. The  insight  thus  acquired  changed  for  some  time  the 
character  of  my  flying  dreams,  by  robbing  them  of  the  illusional 
element.  I  would  simply  feel  myself  soaring  in  my  sleep,  but 
would  not  apperceive  it  as  a  flight;  for  I  would  recognize  the  true 
character  of  the  experience  and  relate  it  to  my  waking  experi- 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  ,  123 


merits.  The  identity  between  the  illusional  and  the  non-illusion- 
al  levitation  phenomena,  however,  must  be  unmistakable  to 
anyone  who  has  experienced  the  several  varieties,  as  I  have. 

Now  let  me  mention  the  fact  that  often  the  floating  sensa- 
tion is  connected  with  a  tingle.  I  have  had  it  several  times  in 
such  a  way  that  the  tingle  resembles  the  strongest  reaction 
after  a  shower  bath.  It  has  come  to  me  at  other  times  locally 
as  if  there  were  a  thready  tingle  in  different  parts  of  the  body. 
I  never  had  paid  very  much  attention  to  these  things  nor  had 
taken  any  careful  record.  But  later  two  subjects,  independently 
and  in  almost  identical  terms  described  a  tingle,  as  follows. 

Case  71.  "While  you  were  talking  and  I  was  relaxing  I 
felt  a  sort  of  twitching  or  tingling.  It  seemed  to  run  from  under 
my  eye  down  the  side  of  my  face  near  the  nose.  I  never  had 
this  before. " 

Case  78.  "I  had  a  queer  sensation.  I  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  it.  It  was  a  kind  of  a  prickly  sensation  just  in  one 
place,  I  thought  I  would  have  to  scratch  it.  It  was  along  the 
thigh  as  far  as  the  knee.  I  don't  remember  ever  feeling  any- 
thing like  it  before." 

VASO-MOTOR    FEATURES 

My  theory  for  all  these  phenomena  is  that  they  are  con- 
nected with  vaso-motor  activity.  The  theory  seems  worth 
stating  even  before  I  have  given  you  all  the  cases  and  all  the 
threads  of  thought  that  make  it  appear  plausible.  The  swelling 
of  the  body  is  evidently,  to  my  notion,  a  projected  sensation  due 
to  vaso-motor  relaxation  of  skin  vessels.  The  floating  sensation 
is  due  to  the  numbness  or  diffusion  of  sensation  caused  by  the 
vaso-motor  relaxation  plus  (and  this  is  more  problematical)  a 
more  or  less  real  inhibition  of  the  pressure  sense.  All  these 
elements  of  explanation  are  referred  to  in  the  letter  of  April  17. 

Now  as  to  the  tingle,  my  own  feelings  during  relaxation 
indicate  that  it  depends  on  the  rapidity  with  which  the  vaso- 
motor  dilatation  takes  place.  In  one  case,  already  reported  to 
you,  the  dilation  was  so  rapid  that  I  felt  light  in  the  head  and 
had  an  illusion  of  falling.  No  anxiety  attended  this  phenomenon. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  tingling  I  knew,  or  thought  I  knew 
what  was  going  on;  for  I  had  had  quite  as  marked  a  tingling  once 
before,  it  having  come  to  me  in  the  earlier  instance  as  my  first 
intimation  of  the  vaso-motor  character  of  the  floating  sensation. 
Altho'  not  prepared  for  the  dizziness  which  followed  the  sudden 
relaxation  of  the  body  or  skin  vaso-motors,  its  "explanation" 


The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


flashed  upon  me  before  the  illusion  of  falling  got  a  very  strong 
grip  on  me.  There  was  no  room,  it  would  seem,  for  me  to  put 
any  elaborate  fancies  in  between  two  facts  so  clearly  perceived 
and  coming  so  closely  in  connection. 

BREEDING    GROUNDS    OF    THE    ILLUSION 

But  suppose  similar  physiological  phenomena  occurring  in 
a  different  psychological  setting.  It  needs  no  great  stretch  of 
the  imagination  to  conceive  of  cases  where  experiences  of  peace 
and  relaxation  would  be  obtained  through  more  or  less  mystical 
practices,  such  as  the  meditations  of  the  saints,  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  buddhists,  the  reading  of  Science  and  Health  at  the 
bedside  and  so  on.  This  implies  in  each  case  a  rather  wide 
ranging  of  the  mind  through  realms  of  conjecture  and  pseudo- 


A     SECOND   EXAMPLE   OF' LEVITATION   IN   DKKAMS 

Dependent  as  in  Former  Case  upon  Vasomotor  Changes 

This  is  a  faithful,  if  somewhat  labored,  picturization  of  an  actual  dream  known  to  have  been 
elicited  by  vasomotor  warming  of  the  body  surface,  in  response  to  cold  while  the  dreamer  was  in 
bed;  thus  it  depended  upon  a  reaction  of  the  mechanism  that  regulates  temperature. 

The  dreamer  fails  to  apperceive  correctly  (mal-apperceives)  the  corresponding  sensations; 
these  being  in  the  main:  1.  Changes  of  pressure  from  the  suffusion  of  the  blood  through  skin  and 
muscles,  in  addition  to  actual  pulsations.  2.  Joint  and  muscle  sensations  of  the  dreamer's  actual 
movements,  automatically  initiated  in  pursuit  of  comfort  (warmth). 

The  apperceptive  errors  belong  in  the  class  of  "trial  apperceptions,"  as  explained  by  the 
writer  in  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  vols.  for  1915-16  and  1916-17.  (See  also  critical 
review  of  the  theory  in  Psychcl.  Bulletin  for  January,  1918.' 

The  above  statements  apply  exactly  to  the  previous  example,  in  which  the  dreamer  ends  by 
drawing  up  his  legs  under  him  and  obtains  an  illusion  of  levitating  in  that  position.  In  the 
present  instance  the  final  heat-seeking  movement  leads  to  the  passing  of  the  foot  over  the  varied 
surfaces  of  a  hot-water  bottle,  made  of  rubber  and  sheathed  in  a  furry  cloth  bag.  The  resulting 
spatial  and  tactual  impressions  are  thereupon  "transposed"  from  the  sensory  field  of  the  foot  to 
the  psycho-sensory  field  of  the  hand — a  mis-reading  of  "loca!  sign." 

The  initial  sense  of  vasomotion  gives  rise  to  the  illusion  of  floating  like  a  balloon  or  inflated 
dummy,  which  swings  in  the  way  of  the  traffic,  obliging  the  rapid  vehicles  to  swerve  sharply  in 
their  course  along  the  already  undulating  parkway. 

Continued  on  Page  127 


Lydiard  H.  Horton  125 


science  in  which  anyone  can  find  much  material  to  enrich  and 
overlay  the  sensation  I  have  described,  covering  it  almost  out 
of  semblance  to  the  original.  Does  not  Ethel  Puffer  in  her 
chapter  on  the  Esthetic  Repose  call  attention  to  just  such  illusory 
accretions?  It  remains  for  us  to  divine  the  underlying  physio- 
logical facts.  "My  soul  swims  in  the  Being  of  God  as  a  fish  in 
water, "  says  the  humble  Beguine,  Mechthild.  Again  the  theoso- 
phist  feels  his  astral  body  floating  away  and  visiting  over  the 
world.  A  book  could  be  written  full  of  instances  of  this  kind 
that  would  show  a  perfect  series  of  such  illusions,  all  of  them 
conceivably  built  around  the  actual  sensations  that  I  have  en- 
countered in  their  bare  state  among  my  subjects. 

Here  is  a  case  in  point,  which  has  never  been  explained 
and  which  is  quoted  in  Professor  Muensterberg's  Psychotherapy. 
I  think  that  you  will  concede  the  close  connection  of  this  case 
with  the  cases  I  have  cited  in  this  post-script  and  in  my  original 
letter. 

"My  condition  was  horrible  in  the  extreme.  I  had  consumption 
of  the  lungs  and  other  supposedly  fatal  troubles,  complicated  by 
wrecked  nerves.  (Here  follows  the  laoly's  account  of  the  visits  of  a 
Christian  Science  healer)  ...  At  noon  she  left  me  to  go  to  her 
home  for  lunch. 


RECONSTITUTION  (Experience  as  related} 

I  was  pondering  seriously  on  her  reiterated 

Cf.  "Mid-State"  of  'God  is  love  and  fills  the  universe  and  there 

attention.  is  nothing  beside  Him,'  when  I  suddenly  had 

a  sensation  of  being  lifted  up  or  rising  slowly 
and  becoming  lighter  in  body. 

Sudden  dilation  of  A  rush  of  power  that  I  have  no  way  of  des- 

scribing  to  you  filled  me.     I  seemed  to  be  a 
tremendous  dynamo 

The  inhibition  of  in  the  air  several  inches 

pressure  scn*e.  above  the  ground  and  still  ascending. 

When 

A  -particular  di/usion  I    noticed    everything   around    me    becoming 

prismatic  and  more  or  less  translucent, 


more  anon. 


126 


The  Illusion  of  Levitation 


RECONSTITUTION 

Ligh'nrss  again. 

Alarm. 

The  swelling  sensations. 


The  altruistic  "desire 
h  show  how"  of  the  typical 
Flying  Dream  turned  lo 
therapeutic  account. 


Vasomotor  relaxation  and 
consequently  greater  beat 
of  the  pulses. 


The  "return    o  earth." 


Was  this  experience 
healthful  simply 
because  it  served  to 
remove  snhibitions 
existing  in 
the  Function 
of  Repose? 


I  could  have  walked  on  water  without  sink- 
ing, and  I  had  a  distinct  understanding  that 
matter  seemed  to  be  disintegrating  and  dis- 
solving around  me.  I  was 

frightened  but  self-conscious  and  quiet. 
I  remained  in  this  state  for  about  three  hours, 
my  consciousness  seeming  to  have  reached 

ALMOST  COSMIC  GREATNESS. 

I  could  have  cured,  I  felt, 
any  human  ill,  was  filled  with  an  absorbing 
altruistic  desire  to  help  suffering.  It  was 
tremendous  and  totally  foreign  to  my  every- 
day attitude.  At  the  end  of  the  day,  towards 
twilight,  I  became  wearied  of  the  TREMENDOUS 
THROBBING  and  exalted  state  in  which 
I  still  remained  and  gave  utterance  to 
the  thought  aloud.  Almost  before  I  had 
formulated  it  the  condition  left  me,  and  like 
the  sudden  dropping  of  a  weight,  I  struck  the 
ground,  the  same  dull,  ordinary  person  of 
e very-day  experience,  but  with  the  vast  differ- 
ence of  perfect  health,  radiant  and  lasting  to 
the  present  writing.  My  father  like  myself 
is  baffled  and  wondering.  We  are  both  pretty 
hard  skeptics.  I  want  the  truth,  wrhether  it 
be  terrible  or  otherwise.  I  am  profoundly 
grateful  to  the  Christian  Scientist,  if  I  re- 
gained my  health  through  her  ministrations, 
but  I  have  not  so  far  been  able  to  label  myself 
and  rise  in  their  church  services  to  tell  what 
has  been  done  on  me.  The  performance 
repels  me  as  crude  and  rather  bad  taste.  I 
swear  to  you  on  my  honor  as  an  American 
woman  and  mother  that  what  I  have  written 
you  is  true,  absolutely.  If  you  can  give  me 
any  light  or  if  my  experience  may  perchance 
give  you  a  helping  ray,  my  renewed  lease  on 
life  may  have  had  some  purpose  after  all, 
which  I  have  questioned  in  my  cynical 
moods. " 


Lydiard  H.  Norton  127 


"The  unprejudiced  psychotherapist,  adds  Professor  Muenster- 
berg,  will  be  perfectly  able  to  find  room  for  such  cures  and,  if  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  scientific  physician  to  make  use  of  every  natural  energy 
in  the  interest  of  the  patient's  health,  he  has  no  right  to  neglect  the 
overwhelming  powers  of  the  apparently  mysterious  states."  (p.  317) 

IMPEDIMENTS    TO    A    SCIENCE    OF    REST 

My  object  in  writing  of  my  experiments  is  to  bring  within 
the  pale  of  science  a  number  of  "natural  energies"  that  are 
at  present  the  possession  of  more  or  less  confused  mystics. 
The  association  of  the  rest-states  with  mystical  practices  is  the 
greatest  source  of  difficulty  that  I  find  in  presenting  the  facts. 
I  am  hoping  that  if  these  facts  are  published  under  your  auspices 
this  difficulty  may  disappear. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

L.  H. 

(To  be  Concluded) 

Continued  from  Page  124 

The  various  items  are  fanciful  reproductions  of  memories  of  the  park  at  Morningside  Heights. 
The  emotional  tone  of  the  Irish  policeman  is  anger,  which  gives  way  to  complacency  when  the 
dreamer,  now  deflated,  sets  foot  to  the  ground  (contact  with  hot-water  bottle)  and  pets  the  dog's 
head.  The  policeman  is  obviously  an  externalization  of  the  dreamer  himself — an  alter  ego. 

Such  is  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of. 

The  analysis,  or  rather  inventory,  cannot  be  completed  here;  but  this  fragment  may  serve  as 
an  earnest  of  the  type  of  explanation  that  is  to  follow.  The  physiological  treatment  ("re-con- 
slitution")  here  sketched  should  serve,  in  respect  of  Flying  Dreams  at  least,  to  give  a  quietus 
to  the  rather  wild  guesses  of  the  Freudian  school.  Havelock  Ellis  has  gone  farthest  in  the  right 
direction  by  recognizing  "Aviation  in  Dreams"  to  be  due  to  physiological  mechanisms  operating 
in  sleep,  rather  than  to  wish-fulfilments.  The  detailed  consideration  of  these  mechanisms  will 
form  the  subject  of  the  next  instalment. 

Consult  Havelock  Ellis,  "The  World  of  Dreams,"  1911,  Houghton  Mifflin  &  Company; 
note  esperiallj  the  sixth  chapter,  which  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  1910. 


REVIEWS 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  WAR.  By  J.  T.  MacCurdy,  M.  D.,  London. 
William  Heinemann,  1917.  Pp.  68. 

Every  one  admits  that  war  is  a  terrible — though  not  an  absolutely" 
unmitigated — evil,  and  the  writer  of  this  excellent  and  eminently 
pertinent  little  book  asserts,  with  good  reason,  that  the  first  step 
toward  its  elimination  is  a  thorough  and  comprehensive  understanding 
of  the  causes  that  produce  it.  So  far  as  these  causes  are  political  and 
economic  in  their  nature,  the  discussion  of  them  belongs  elsewhere, 
and  a  vast  amount  has  been  written  with  regard  to  them.  What  is 
not  appreciated  in  its  true  bearings,  is  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most 
effective  of  the  war-producing  influences  lie  deep  in  certain  tendencies 
of  human  nature. 

War,  as  he  points  out,  "is  not  an  isolated  phenomenon,  but  the 
product  of  the  best  and  worst  in  human  kind.  It  would  be  a  sad  day 
for  the  race  if  man  lost  his  hardihood  and  ideas  of  loyalty  merely  for 
the  sake  of  peace.  His  psyche  must  be  transformed,  not  syncopated. 
This  change  can  only  come  from  within,  and  only  when  he  has  learned 
his  essential  nature.  The  ambition  of  the  psychologist — a  funda- 
mentallv  practical  man — is,  therefore,  to  set  men  thinking  before  thev 
act." 

It  may  be  stated  as  a  proposition  to  which  many  modern  students 
of  clinical  psychology  will  give  credence,  that  the  phenomena  of  war, 
or — to  be  more  accurate — the  phenomena  of  peace  and  war  (since  these 
are  states  which  can  only  be  adequately  studied  as  in  close  relation  to 
each  other) — are  analogous  to  the  phenomena  of  the  psychoses;  and, 
as  a  psychosis,  war  is  to  be  investigated  in  the  light  of  the  modern 
doctrines  with  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  disorders  classified  broadly 
under  that  term. 

To  go  a  step  further  in  the  presentation  of  this  view,  it  may  be 
said,  first,  that  war,  regarded  as  a  breaking  away  from  ordinary  social 
obligations,  implies  the  coming  into  life  and  action  of  primitive,  ele- 
mental motives,  by  which  every  one  is  swayed  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  but  of  which  their  possessors  are  for  the  most  part  unconscious. 
These  unconscious  motives  have  been  very  fruitfully  studied  during 
the  past  few  decades,  from  two  standpoints;  namely,  first,  that  stand- 
point which  the  "psychoanalytic  movement"  has  done  so  much  to 
render  clear;  and,  next,  from  the  standpoint  of  those  who  regard  men, 
not  as  isolated  human  beings  coming  together  incidentally  to  form 

128 


Reviews  129 

societies,  but  as  persons  who  from  their  very  nature,  and,  as  it  were, 
aboriginally  and  innately,  are  gregarious  in  their  instincts. 

The  leading  spirit  in  the  first  of  these  movements  has  been,  un- 
questionably, Sigmund  Freud,  whose  work  is  supplemented,  with 
reference  to  war  as  in  other  respects,  by  Ernest  tTones,  from  whose 
essay,  published  in  1916,  MacCurdy  liberally  quotes. 

The  investigator  whom  MacCurdy  mainly  cites  with  reference  to 
the  second  movement  is  the  surgeon  and  psychologist,  Wilfred  Trotter, 
whose  papers  and  books  treating  of  the  "herd  instinct"  have  been  so 
largely  quoted.  It  seems  to  the  reviewer  fair  to  say  that  the  names 
of  other  distinguished  men  should  be  referred  to  in  this  latter  connec- 
tion, and  especially  those  of  two  writers — Josiah  Royce,  the  philosopher 
and  psychologist  of  Harvard  University,  and  Levy-Bruhl,  who  has 
developed  this  thesis  of  the  primary  gregariousness  of  human  beings 
quite  elaborately  in  his  admirable  study  of  the  mental  operations  of  the 
primitive  races.* 

War,  looked  at  from  the  psychotic  standpoint  here  presented, 
is,  the  writer  thinks,  a  crisis  for  which  days  and  years  of  peace  gradually 
prepare,  by  tightening  powerful  springs  which  represent  repressed 
primitive  instincts  and  which  are  destined  eventually  to  break  loose 
from  forces  that  have  controlled  them.  And  this  oscillation  is  likely 
to  go  on,  unless,  indeed,  it  is  possible,  in  the  meantime,  to  enlist  the 
consciousness  and  reason  of  men  in  the  task  of  grasping  and  supervising 
the  hidden  forces  of  their  natures;  or  unless  some  adequate  substitutes 
for  war  are  found  which  will  provide  an  outlet  for  the  powers  and  spirit 
of  adventure  of  large  groups  of  men.  Neither  of  the  two  sets  of  in- 
fluences now  brought  to  bear  on  the  side  of  peace, — namely,  militarism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  pacificism,  on  the  other, — is  likely,  the  writer 
thinks,  to  accomplish  very  much.  The  representatives  of  each  of 
these  tendencies  unite  in  trying  "to  solve  a  delicate  situation  by  a 
tour  deforce.  The  militarist  sneers  at  diplomacy  of  any  kind  and  seeks 
to  adjust  every  difference  by  the  sword,  while  the  pacifist  would  change 
human  nature  by  fiat. " 

The  fact  that  in  war  men  fall  back  upon  their  primitive  instincts 
is  obvious  and  well  known.  But  less  familiar  is  the  further  fact  that 
every  child  brings  into  the  world  a  greater  or  less  amount  of  instinct 
for  violence  which  in  war  is  bound  to  show  itself  as  a  veritable  blood- 
lust.  This  quality  is  very  unequally  developed  and  unequally  con- 
verted into  forces  that  work  in  behalf  of  civilization;  but  unless  it  is 
present  or  can  be  developed  in  some  measure,  the  actual  business  of 
war,  at  least  for  the  common  soldier,  is  certain  to  become  soon  too 
loathsome  for  endurance. 


130  Rericirs 

Strangely  enough,  it  is  due  to  the  peculiar  mode  of  working  out 
of  man's  gregariousness  that  the  powerful  inhibitions  which  society 
has  come,  gradually,  to  impose  on  this  instinct  for  violence,  on  the 
part  of  the  individual,  are  removed  in  case  of  war.  For  gregariousness 
makes  men  form  nations,  but  nations  are  invariably  rivals,  and  this 
rivalry  is  liable  to  become  so  intense  that  a  trivial  cause  brings  a  new 
set  of  forces  into  play.  Then  the  blood-lust  comes  to  the  front.  The 
foreigner  is  not  primarily  hated,  or  even  disliked,  as  such;  often  quite 
the  contrary  is  true.  But  the  moment  war  breaks  out  the  foreigner 
"becomes  a  scapegoat  for  his  race:  he  must  be  killed  or  injured  in  any 
possible  way.  If  there  is  to  be  real  war  it  is  obvious  that  this  second 
phase  has  to  develop,  for  unless  animosity  of  the  race  becomes  in- 
dividual, it  would  be  impossible  for  a  civilized  man  to  deal  a  lethal 
blow,  restrained  as  he  is  by  the  inhibitions  of  generations.  Moreoever, 
these  inhibitions  must  be  lifted  to  the  point  where  killing  gives  satis- 
faction, else  there  will  be  a  woeful  lack  of  the  enthusiasm  necessary  to 
outweigh  personal  sacrifice  and  sustain  the  war." 

The  marvelous  scene  which  the  author  quotes  from  Shakespeare's 
*' Julius  Caesar,"  where  Cinna  becomes  the  object  of  mob  fury  because 
of  his  name,  and  although  he  is  obviously  the  wrong  person,  is  cited  as 
a  case  in  point. 

MacCurdy  quotes  at  considerable  length  from  Freud's  paper 
on  "The  Disillusionment  of  War,"  which  has  for  its  main  thesis  the 
doctrine  that  the  primitive  egoistic  tendencies  of  every  individual  are 
the  most  "real"  part  of  him,  and  that  society  is  to  be  best  understood 
by  studying  the  metamorphoses  which  these  instincts  undergo. 

These  views  of  Freud  are  developed  so  concisely  that  it  would  be 
difficult  to  do  them  justice  without  citations  of  unreasonable  length 
and  I  pass  on  to  the  point  at  which  MacCurdy's  views  differ  from, 
Freud's.  This  is  especially  with  reference  to  the  relation  of  men  to  the 
social  groups  in  which  they  live,  and  of  these  of  different  groups  among 
themselves.  Here,  he  thinks,  Freud's  individualistic  studies  are  in- 
adequate, and  he  quotes  him  as  saying  that  he  cannot  readily  explain 
"the  hate  existing  between  nations,"  and  that  "it  seems  as  if  the 
aggregation  of  men  simply  multiplied  their  primitive  impulses. " 

"It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  Freud  views  the  atrocities  of 
war  as  more  natural  than  the  civilized  behaviour  of  man     .     .     ' 
This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  mystery  to  be  solved  is  the  be- 
haviour of  peace  rather  than  the  incidents  of  war." 

Jones's  attitude  is  similar  to  Freud's,  and  carries  his  argument 
in  various  respects  a  little  further.  Amongst  other  interesting  propo- 


Reviews  131 

sitions  "he  (Jones)  deprecates  any  attempts  to  abolish  war  by  forcible 
repression  of  primitive  instincts  .  .  .  He  suggests  that  it  may  be 
possible  that  the  sublimating  capacity  of  man  is  now  at  its  greatest 
height  .  .  .  What  he  recommends  is  a  more  intelligent  treatment 
of  primitive  instincts,  the  substitution  of  open-eyed  study  and  control 
of  social  problems  rather  than  blind  legal  negations  which  tend  to  in- 
crease social  unrest." 

"On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  can  sum  up  Jones'  contribution 
as  an  effort  to  establish  the  violent,  primitive  instincts  of  man,  usually 
unconscious,  as  an  important,  if  not  the  primary,  cause  of  war. " 

But  Jones  also,  as  MacCurdy  justly  says,  fails  to  study  adequately, 
or  even  mention,  "the  phenomenon  of  international  hostility,  the 
jealousy  which  is  exhibited  in  times  of  peace."  And  it  is  with  this 
important  matter  that  the  second  portion  of  the  essay  deals. 

"International  rivalry  is,  apparently,  never  friendly;  in  fact,  it 
seems  to  be  invariably  characterized  by  jealousy,  often  by  bitterness." 
And  no  solutions  of  the  difficulty  are  offered,  except  that  it  is  "silly," 
or  inevitable  and  of  practical  utility.  In  fact,  a  better  solution  is  to 
be  found  through  the  study  of  the  instinctive  gregariousness  of  men 
and  the  constant  interplay,  as  source  of  motive,  between  the  dictates 
of  this  gregariousness  and  men's  relatively  individualistic  opinions 
and  desires. 

"There  is  but  one  psychologist  who  has  seen  the  potentiality  of 
man's  gregariousness.  This  is  Wilfred  Trotter." 

This  writer,  who  is  by  profession  an  English  surgeon,  attempts  to 
explain  many  of  the  anomalies  of  man's  conduct  by  pointing  out  that 
he  has  an  instinct  "to  react  with  the  herd"  and  is  relatively  "deaf  to 
the  voice  of  one  without  the  herd." 

"There  are  three  great  types  of  development  in  herd  life:  that 
of  the  animals  who  unite  for  aggression,  as  do  wolves;  that  of  the 
species  like  sheep,  whose  cohesion  gives  protection;  and  finally,  the 
highest  degree  of  gregariousness,  which  he  terms  the  socialized  type, 
exemplified  in  the  society  of  ants,  or  better  still  by  bees. " 

Trotter's  first  papers  on  this  subject  appeared  in  1908,  and  his 
later  book,*  valuable  as  it  is,  is  marred,  MacCurdy  thinks,  by  the 
writer's  strong  prejudice  against  everything  which  is  German.  Never- 
theless, the  main  propositions  appear  to  him  valuable  and  sound;  and 
so  far  from  contradicting  the  conclusions  of  psychoanalysis,  they 
supplement  them  in  an  important  way. 

*Scienoe  History  of  the  Universe — Vol.    VIII,    Mathematics — Section   on    Mathematical 
Applications  by  Dr.  Franz  Bellinger — Cum-nt  Literature  Publishing  G>.,  New  York,  1909. 


Reviews 


"One  may  say  that  psychoanalysis  deals  with  individualistic 
motivation,  while  herd  instinct  is  a  study  of  social  instinct.  " 

Repression,  he  believes,  is  only  one  of  the  tasks  of  the  instincttive 
repressing  force  by  which  it  is  brought  about. 

"The  other  task  of  this  instinctive  force  is  to  augment  the 
individualistic  unconscious  instinct  when  it  is  symbolized  in  a  form 
that  is  socially  acceptable.  This  is  the  essence  of  the  dynamic 
structure  of  'sublimation."1 

It  would  be  unnecessary  to  analyze  further  the  opinions  which 
MacCurdy  gives  of  the  psychological  trends  represented  by  the  work 
of  these  able  men.  His  own  contribution  consists  in  the  amplification 
of  Trotter's  views  with  reference  to  the  social  consciousness  and  its 
significance.  As  for  the  real  dynamic  value  of  the  "sublimation" 
which  in  the  eyes  of  Freud  has  been  hitherto  regarded  as  a  somewhat 
passive  or  negative  outcome,  or  by-product,  of  individual  instincts 
acted  on  by  repression,  MacCurdy's  views  are  such  as  have  long  been 
favored  by  the  reviewer,  and  have  been  called  attention  to  by  him  in 
different  articles. 

The  reviewer  would  only  urge  that  the  argument  presented  might 
well  be  carried  further.  What  are,  in  reality,  these  social,  "gregar- 
ious," tendencies  which  Trotter  regards  as  aboriginal  and  instinctive? 
What  is  their  origin,  their  "sanction"  and  their  scope?  As  one  studies 
evolution,  one  finds,  or  seems  to  find,  first,  the  individual,  then,  "so- 
ciety." But  when  "society"  has  beome  developed  it  takes  a  place 
even  superior  to  that  taken  by  its  separate  members. 

Going  further  on  this  path  (although  in  fact  it  is  not  the  only  path 
that  one  can  follow)  one  finds  individuals  who  transcend,  in  their 
development,  even  society,  —  in  the  same  sense  that  a  sentiment,  say 
of  "loyalty,"  transcends  any  group  of  men  in  whom  the  sentiment  is 
exemplified.  Is  there  not,  then,  a  social  "essence,"  or  "generic 
energy,"  to  which  we  owe  a  greater  allegiance  than  even  to  society 
itself,  and  is  not  this  what  is,  or  should  be,  meant  by  "religion?"  This 
brings  in  a  problem  of  metaphysics,  but  the  reviewer  would  urge  that 
without  a  reference  to  metaphysics  the  full  bearing,  even  of  "physics" 
cannot  be  appreciated. 

This  argument  cannot  be  properly  developed  here,  and  the 
practical  point  for  the  present  moment,  is,  after  all,  as  MacCurdy  says, 
not  so  much  the  question,  Do  we  want  to  abolish  war,  as  the  question, 
Do  we  want  nations?  For  hitherto  no  ground  of  sufficient  cohesiveness 
except  war  has  been  found  that  is  adequate  to  weld  together  the  units 
of  which  any  large  modern  nation  is  composed. 


Reviews  133 

"In  the  meantime,  psychology  can  offer  one  ray  of  hope. 
Instincts  triumph  over  reason,  but  largely  because  instincts  act 
unconsciously.  When  man  is  so  educated  as  to  know  himself  and 
recognize  the  forces  that  are  within  him,  he  will  be  in  a  position  to  see 
the  way  his  footsteps  lead,  and  change  his  path — if  he  wills. " 

This  interesting  and  hopeful  doctrine  rests,  however,  upon  the 
supposition  that  reason  must  be  regarded  as  supreme, — and  one  may 
justly  ask  is  reason  supreme?  Must  it  not  itself  relate  to  what  can  be 
only  classified  as  a  moral  intuition?  And  behind  "society"  as  a 
physical  group,  is  there  not  an  ideal  society  which  is  rather  to  be 
classified  as  an  "energy,"  which  underlies,  at  once,  the  universe  and 
man,  and  provides  a  bond  of  union  between  them,  while  it  offers  a 
goal  for  man's  imagination  and  his  constructive  effort?  Are  we  solely 
products  of  our  evolutionary  history  taken  in  the  usual  sense?  The 
reviewer  thinks  not  and  believes  that  just  as  society  has  inevitably  a 
hold  on  us, — i.  e.,  just  as  gregariousness  may  be  regarded  as  an  instinct, 
— so,  too,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  our  capacity  for  forming  ideals  is 
just  as  definite  a  part  of  us  as  any  other,  it  may  be  said  that  an  ideal 
society — i.  e.,  our  ideals  of  moral  right  and  wrong — can  also  make  its 
claims  upon  us  and  inevitably  does  so. 

JAMES  J.  PUTNAM,  M.  D 

VOCATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY,  ITS  PROBLEMS  AND  METHODS.  By 
H.  L.  Hollihgworth.  With  a  Chapter  on  the  Vocational  Aptitudes 
of  Women  by  Leta  Stetter  Hollingworth.  New  York:  D.  Appleton 
&  Company,  1917. 

The  author  outlines  the  history  of  the  various  vocational  efforts, 
beginning  with  those  of  primitive  magic,  and  shows  that  the  practices 
of  medieval  clairvoyance  are  far  from  extinct  at  the  present  time. 
The  first  scientific  attempts  at  vocational  guidance  and  selection  are 
dated  from  the  search  for  phrenological  and  physiognomic  principles 
of  diagnosing  individuals,  and  considerable  effort  is  devoted  to  their 
refutation  on  the  basis  of  empirical  and  statistically  treated  data. 
The  rapid  progress  in  experimental  psychology  has  led  to  the  applica- 
tion of  mental  tests,  the  elaboration  of  graded  intelligence  scales,  the 
establishment  of  norms  of  subnormality  and  normality,  and  the  de- 
velopment of  refined  methods  of  mathematical  treatment  of  experi- 
mental data,  to  the  description  of  which  tl.e  main  part  of  the  book  is 
devoted. 

One  of  the  first  methodical  attempts  to  differentiate  the  various 
vocations  from  one  another  on  the  basis  of  special  aptitudes  and 


134  Reviews 

characteristics  is  the  method  of  the  psychograph,  which  may  be  ap- 
plied to  the  individual  as  well  as  to  a  vocation.  ""he  former  is  illus- 
trated by  a  lengthy  reference  to  E.  Toulouse,  examination  of  Zola, 
Dalou,  and  Henri  Poincare,  the  latter  by  an  instance  from  C.  E.  Sea- 
shore's study  of  professional  musicians.  The  more  specialized  voca- 
tional tests  and  methods  are  divided  into  four  groups,  according  as 
they  employ  the  vocational  miniature,  the  vocational  sampling,  the 
vocational  analogy,  and  the  haphazard  substitution  or  selection  of 
tests  on  the  basis  of  empirically  determined  correlations  of  success  or 
failure  in  certain  tests  with  success  or  failure  in  certain  occupations. 
A  more  recently  developed  method  involves  "  self-analysis  "  and  judg- 
ments or  "consensus  of  opinion"  of  one's  associates.  Here  the  author 
offers  some  valuable  original  contributions  of  an  experimental  nature. 
The  method  consists,  briefly,  in  having  a  number  of  closely  associated 
individuals  rank  all  members  of  the  group,  including  themselves,  in  the 
order  in  which  they  are  estimated  to  manifest  higher  or  lower  degrees 
of  certain  mental  and  moral  characteristics.  The  scholastic  career  of 
an  individual,  if  properly  diagnosed  and  interpreted,  may  also  offer 
some  valuable  facts  as  to  his  aptitudes,  interests,  and  limits  of  further 
development.  In  the  discussion  of  the  problem:  to  what  extent  inter- 
correlations  between  mental  tests  revealed  by  preliminary  trials  are 
modified  by  continued  practice  in  the  tests,  the  author  again  has  to 
offer  some  extensive  experimental  results  of  his  own  which  lead  him 
to  distinguish  sharply  between  temporary  proficiency  and  ultimate 
capacity,  and  to  propose  a  new  program  for  future  work  in  vocational 
psychology. 

In  the  chapter  on  "The  Vocational  Aptitudes  of  Women,"  by 
Leta  Stetter  Hollingworth,  this  author  establishes  the  fact  that  "scien- 
tific experiment  has  revealed  no  sex-difference  in  the  original  nature 
of  intellect  that  would  imply  a  necessary  differentiation  of  vocations 
on  the  ground  of  sex."  She  also  points  out  that  "there  exist  no 
scientific  data  to  show  (1)  differences  in  average  intellect;  (2)  differ- 
ences ir  mental  variability;  (3)  special  causes  of  intellectual  inefficiency 
affecting  one  sex  but  not  the  other;  (4)  differences  in  affective  or  in- 
stinctive equipment,  implying  a  natural  division  of  labor." 

The  book  closes  with  an  Appendix  containing  a  classified  bibliog- 
raphy and  a  large  variety  of  test-materials,  sample  blanks,  standards 
and  norms  for  various  ages  and  activities,  and  forms  for  recording  data. 
While  the  Treatment  of  the  subject-matter  is  concise,  authentic,  and 
conservative,  the  style  is  fluent  and  non-technical,  and  the  book  may 


Reviews  135 


be  highly  recommended  to  all  who  seek  a  trustworthy  and  stimulating 
account  of  the  recent  progress  in  vocational  psychology. 

L.  R.  GEISSLER. 
Clark  University.,  Worcester,  Mass. 

THE  UNMARRIED  MOTHER:  A  STUDY  OF  FIVE  HUNDRED  CASES. 
By  Percy  Gamble  Kammerer,  St.  Stephen's  House,  Boston.  With  an 
Introduction  by  William  Healy,  M.  D.,  Judge  Baker  Foundation, 
Boston.  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1918,  22x15  c.  m.;  pp.  XV, 
342.  $3.00  net. 

"The  Unmarried  Mother"  is  the  third  volume  in  the  series  of 
Criminal  Science  Monographs,  authorized  by  the  American  Institute 
of  Criminal  Law  and  Criminology,  (the  other  two  being  Healy:  "Patho- 
logical Lying,  Accusation,  and  Swindling, ". and  Gluck:  "Studies  in 
Forensic  Psychiatry.")  These  monographs  represent  a  phase  of  "ab- 
normal psychology"  never  as  yet  too  much,  or  even  adequately,  con- 
sidered by  medically  trained  psychologists.  The  question  of  the  un- 
married mother  and  her  child,  for  example,  is  one  of  the  most  important 
social  problems  of  the  present  day,  and  assuredly  needs  attention  from 
those  whose  opinion  might  have  weight — if  expressed  in  the  fitting 
places. 

"Branded,"  as  the  advertisement  says,  "since  civilization  began, 
the  illegitimate  child  is  handicapped  in  life,  even  before  birth;  its 
chances  of  normal  development  are  minimized,  even  its  physical  well- 
being  is  menaced,  and  it  is  obliged  to  bear  an  unfair  burden.  It  is  in 
the  belief  that  enlightened  public  opinion  may  see  fit  to  modify  the 
community  attitude  towards  the  unmarried  mother  and  her  child 
that  Mr.  Kammerer  has  prepared  his  study  of  the  situation.  The 
statistics  presented  show  only  too  plainly  the  futility  of  the  present 
method  of  treating  such  cases,  and  the  necessity  of  a  different  view- 
point from  the  average  if  this  social  evil  is  to  be  remedied."  And 
Doctor  Healy  hits  the  key-note  not  of  this  book  only,  but  of  a  pressing 
need  of  occidental  society  still  suffering  and  in  so  many  ways  from  the 
narrowness  and  the  ignorance  of  the  "  Middle"  Age: —  "To  prevent  the 
disastrous  stigmatization  of  the  so-called  illegitimate  child  or  to  prevent 
in  the  fullest  possible  measure  this  anomalous  social  phenomenon  of 
illegitimacy,  when  nature  and  civilization  are  clearly  at  outs,  we  must 
inevitably  turn  to  the  deeper  consideration  of  causes."  The  next 
particular  decade  or  so,  especially,  when  at  last  this  war-weary  world 
has  crushed  back  the  drive  "on  the  road  to  yesterday,"  will  value 
babies  as  even  babies  seldom  so  far  have  been  valued;  and  we  shall 
see  in  regard  to  legitimacy,  perhaps  even  here  in  America,  who  knovs? 


1 36  Reviews 

« 

we  shall  see — what  we  shall  see.  One  thing  modern  equity  and  bal- 
anced kindness  of  common-sense  certainly  must  attain: — the  removal 
of  reproach  even  in  thought  from  the  burden  of  the  busy  "stork;"  for 
this  child  no  more  than  the  proudest  infant  of  us  all,  asked  to  be 
crowded  out  into  the  doubtfully  happy  world.  Whosesoever  the 
fault,  it  is  not  his,  and  this  book  will  forcibly  and  scientifically  re- 
mind the  intelligent  public  of  that  needful  fact. 

Sixteen  of  the  eighteen  chapters  discuss  respectively  these  topics 
following:  working  methods;  bad  environment;  bad  companions; 
recreational  disadvantages;  educational  disadvantages;  bad  home 
conditions;  early  sex  experience;  heredity;  abnormal  physical  condi- 
tion; sexual  suggestibility;  sexually  suggestible  by  one  individual; 
abnormal  sexualism;  mental  conflict;  assault,  incest,  and  rape;  mental 
abnormality;  and  the  unmarried  mother  in  various  communities. 
There  are  conclusions,  statistics,  and  legislational  suggestions  in 
abundance,  and  sixty-one  literature-references  of  much  value. 

Probably  between  30  and  40  per  cent  of  the  500  cases  summarized 
or  studied  (69)  in  this  book  has  some  kind  or  another  of  mental  defect, 
thinks  the  author,  and  on  this  account,  if  on  no  other  many  "will  see 
in  illegitimacy  but  another  instance  of  social  maladaptation, "  and 
"will  realize  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  lies  through  the  individ- 
ual." Give  the  great  and  basal  sex-question  its  necessary  spiritual 
setting  and  make  it  common  knowledge.  And  see  that  the  children 
born  evolve  into  good  citizens. 

Mr.  Kammerer's  book  lays  due  stress  on  the  subconscious  deter- 
minants of  behavior  and  for  this  reason  too  is  of  much  interest  to  the 
numerous  readers  of  this  JOURNAL.  Doctor  William  Healy's  intro- 
duction is  noteworthy. 

GEORGE  V.  N.  DEARBORN. 

Sargent  Normal  School. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


VOL.  XIII  AUGUST,  1918  NUMBER  3 

ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


A  CLINICAL  STUDY  OF  A  DREAM  PERSONALITY 

BORIS    SIDIS,    A.M.,    PH.D.,    M.D. 

SIDIS    INSTITUTE,    PORTSMOUTH,    N.    H. 

MRS.  B.  a  woman  of  45,  married,  childless,  came  to  me 
for  treatment  for  nervousness,  depression,  head- 
aches, sleeplessness,  dreams,  and  general  indis- 
position, both  physical  and  mental.  She  is  going- 
through  her  menopause  period.  Her  physician  who  sent  her  to 
me  ascribed  her  condition  entirely  to  her  physiological  state  of 
menopause.  The  condition  was  however  far  more  complicated, 
and  on  examination  was  found  to  be  more  psychological  in 
character.  A  psychognostic  study  of  the  case  revealed  some 
interesting  undercurrent  going  on  all  along  in  her  subconscious 
dream  life.  A  rich  dreamy  under  life  akin  to  a  secondary  per- 
sonality was  discovered  in  her  subconsciousness.  This  subcon- 
scious dream  activity  protruded  its  tentacles  into  the  patient's 
waking  life,  and  gave  rise  to  many  of  the  symptoms  from  which 
she  suffered  so  acutely,  without  her,  however,  ever  being  aware 
that  she  had  formed  a  parasitic  personality  which  was  gradually 
growing,  consuming  and  paralyzing  her  life  activity. 

This  ill  formed,  unshapely,  subconscious  secondary  person- 
ality was  of  a  chaotic  character,  mainly  consisting  of  lapsed 
sensations,  perceptions,  feelings,  emotions,  actions  long  gone  by, 
and  generally  of  outlived  events,  impressions,  and  experiences 
long  dead  and  buried.  The  secondary  parasitic  personality  was 
formed  out  of  the  debris  of  her  old  self.  The  struggles,  fears, 
and  disappointments  of  her  early  life  mainly  crowded  the  gloom 
of  her  dream  life.  The  dreams  were  a  recurrence  of  her  former, 

Copyright  1918  by  Richard  G.  Badger.     All  Righlx  Rescind. 

137 


138  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

outlived  experiences  reproduced  in  a  highly  fragmentary,  discon- 
nected, and  chaotic  way. 

The  patient  reached  a  critical  period  in  her  life.  Without 
any  occupation,  without  the  development  of  the  maternal 
instinct  and  all  the  intensity  of  affection  and  activities  that  go 
along  with  it,  without  any  specially  formed  interests  the  patient 
fell  back  on  herself.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation,  the  most 
fundamental  of  all  animal  instincts,  became  predominant.  Along 
with  it  became  awakened  that  terrible  monster,  the  instinct 
which  forms  the  basis  of  all  psychopathic  maladies, — the  fear 
instinct.  The  patient  was  obsessed  with  the  fear  of  becoming 
old,  ungainly,  stout,  and  ugly.  She  suffered  from  apprehensive- 
ness  as  to  her  age,  looks,  and  appearance.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
she  did  not  look  well,  her  features  were  rather  large  and  homely. 
She  was  divorced  from  her  first  husband,  and  was  afraid  of 
losing  her  second  husband.  This  weighed  on  her  mind  since  her 
girlhood.  She  met  with  many  rebuffs  in  society,  and  wras  very 
sensitive  about  her  homeliness.  She  always  suspected  and 
feared  that  people  disregarded  her  on  account  of  her  looks.  She 
had  fears  about  her  health,  she  looked  sickly,  cachectic,  and  ugly. 
She  had  fears  that  she  had  lost  all  her  abilities,  was  worthless. 
Her  apprehensive  moods  colored  her  all  being,  became  subcon- 
scious and  was  diffused  throughout  her  dream  activities. 

In  my  work  "The  Causation"  I  have  pointed  out  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Diffusion  by  which  the  fear  instinct  spreads  throughout 
the  organization  of  mental  systems.  This  is  what  has  taken  place 
in  the  patient.  Along  with  it  the  patient's  experiences  have  be- 
come of  an  apprehensive  mood.  The  affective  tone  of  mental 
life  has  become  one  of  fear,  distrust,  and  suspicion.  The  ideas,' 
images,  representations,  and  dreams  were  of  a  gloomy,  scaring, 
and  apprehensive  character,  such  as  of  evil  agencies,  snakes, 
tigers,  and  monsters  of  which  she  had  read  or  had  seen  in 
pictures.  She  formed  the  fear  that  her  friends  did  not  care  for 
her,  that  she  was  going  to  lose  her  friends  and  relatives,  that  she 
was  going  to  lose  her  husband  who,  she  thought,  did  not  care  for 
her  on  account  of  her  defects  and  her  stupidity,  lack  of  abilities, 
and  especially  on  account  of  her  ugliness.  Life  became  a  burden 
to  her.  She  began  to  brood  about  her  troubles,  her  deficiencies, 
her  fears.  She  became  extremely  self-centred,  did  not  care  for 
anyone  but  self,  talked  only  of  herself,  of  her  anxiety,  of  fear  and 
self.  The  fear  became  often  so  intense  that  she  felt  like  com- 
mitting suicide,  and  then  she  was  afraid  of  any  sharp  objects, 


Boris  Sidis  139 


such  as  axes  and  knives;  she  was  afraid  of  committing  some 
crime. 

After  long  questioning  I  could  not  obtain  more  than  the 
bare  account  of  dreams  dating  from  her  early  childhood, — she 
dreams  of  endless  walking  and  of  great  fatigue.  She  also  dreams 
of  being  in  a  rowboat  which  turns  round  and  round.  Then  she 
dreams  of  being  in  a  cave  the  overhanging  ceiling  of  which  crushes 
her.  This  is  all  she  could  remember.  When  she  wakes  up  she 
often  does  not  know  where  she  is.  Sometimes  on  such  occasion 
she  has  visual  hallucinations,  she  feels  and  sees  someone  bending 
over  her.  Her  life  is  like  a  maze,  like  a  labyrinth.  She  realizes 
those  impassable,  thorny  and  stony  life  roads,  full  of  danger  and 
suffering,  in  her  day  experiences,  recurring  with  great  intensity, 
complexity  of  detail,  and  addition  of  local  and  emotional  coloring 
in  the  subconscious  activities  of  her  dream-consciousness. 

The  dream  activities  kept  on  repeating  themselves,  giving 
rise  to  dreams  having  similar  and  even  the  same  content,  but 
slightly  differing  in  the  manne'r  of  association,  or  in  form  and 
structure  of  combination  of  elements,  like  various  compositions 
on  the  same  fundamental  motive.  The  patient  was  of  a  highly 
artistic  temperament,  imaginative,  and  of  a  brooding  disposition. 
The  variations  in  the  combinations  of  the  associative  systems 
and  their  elements  could  be  almost  infinite,  and  still  the  funda- 
mental ideas  or  themes  were  quite  limited  in  number.  With  all 
the  rich  endowment  of  waking  and  subwaking  subconscious 
activities  characteristic  of  the  patient's  mental  life  the  poverty 
of  the  fundamental  or  base-dreams  was  quite  marked,  and  could 
be  reduced  to  less  than  a  dozen  for  a  period  of  many  years,  in 
fact  for  almost  a  whole  life  time.  There  were  many  variants 
of  substantially  the  same  dream,  so  much  so  that  one  could 
easily  foretell  in  the  beginning  the  whole  trend  of  the  dream. 
The  organized  dream  systems  recurred  in  an  automatic  way  as 
reflex  reactions  in  response  to  the  same  or  similar  conditions 
of  external  and  internal  stimulations  in  the  same  way  as  the 
conditional  reflexes  in  Pavlov's  dogs. 

In  "The  Causation  and  Treatment  of  Psychopathic  Dis- 
eases" I  lay  stress,  as  in  my  previous  works,  on  the  recurrence 
of  the  psychophysiological  functioning  of  mental  systems,  or 
of  the  total  moment  of  consciousness,described  as  the  recurrent 
moment-consciousness,  based  on  recurrence  of  psychophysiologi- 
cal reflexes,  present  in  animals  and  man.  I  think  it  best  to 
quote  from  my  last  works  on  the  subject: 


140  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality. 

"In  psychopathic  affections  the  disturbance  consists  in  the 
formation  of  non-adaptive  associations  of  central  neuron-systems 
with  receptors  which  normally  do  not  have  as  their  terminal 
response  the  particular  (appropriate)  motor  and  glandular 
reactions. 

"In  Pavlov's  experiments  the  flow  of  saliva  or  of  gastric 
juice  in  the  dog  with  the  fistula  could  be  brought  about  by 
associations  wTith  blue  light,  with  the  sound  of  a  whistle,  by  a 
tickle,  or  scratch,  or  by  various  diagrams,  squares,  circles,  as  in 
the  experiments  of  Dr.  Orbeli.  What  holds  true  in  the  case  of 
conditional  reflexes  in  regard  to  saliva  and  gastric  juice  also 
holds  true  of  other  conditional  reflexes  formed  by  psychopathies. 
The  mechanism  in  psychopathies  is  the  same  which  Pavlov  and 
his  disciples  employ  in  the  formation  of  various  conditional 
reflexes  in  the  case  of  dogs.  All  kinds  of  abnormal  reactions  of 
a  morbid  character  may  thus  be  formed  in  response  to  ordinary 
stimuli  of  life. 

"Emotions  are  specially  sub'ject  to  associations  of  a  morbid 
or  psychopathological  character.  The  physiological  effects  of 
emotions  may  be  linked  by  associative  processes  writh  ideas, 
percepts,  and  sensations  which  are  ordinarily  either  indifferent, 
or  give  rise  to  reactions  and  physiological  effects  of  a  type 
opposite  to  that  of  the  normal. 

'The  reactions  of  muscle  and  gland  are  like  so  many  electric 
bells  which  by  various  connections  and  combinations  may  be 
made  to  ring  from  any  sensory  button  or  receptor,  as  Sherrington 
would  put  it.  An  object,  however  harmless,  may  become 
associated  with  reactions  of  fear,  anguish,  and  distress.  This 
holds  true  not  only  of  man,  but  also  of  the  life  of  all  lower  animals. 

"Associations  and  reactions,  motor,  circulatory,  glandular, 
however  abnormal,  formed  by  young  animals,  persist  through 
life.  This  holds  specially  true  of  the  higher  and  more  sensitive 
animal  organisms,  such  as  the  mammals.  All  training  and 
formation  of  peculiar  reactions,  such  as  various  tricks,  habits, 
scare-habits  (fear-psychoses),  scare-pain  reflexes  depend  entirely 
on  this  plasticity  of  the  nervous  system  to  form  new  associations, 
or  as  Pavlov  and  his  school  put  it,  to  form  conditional  reflexes 
and  inhibitions  in  regard  to  glandular  secretions,  and  in  fact 
to  all  other  psychophysiological  reactions. 

"Psychopathies  are  essentially  pathological  affections  of 
associative  life.  Psychopathic  maladies  are  the  formation  of 


Boris  Sidis  141 


abnormal,  morbid,  'conditional  reflexes'  and  of  'inhibitions'  of 
reactions  of  associative  normal  life  activity. 

"What  we  find  on  examination  of  the  psychogenesis  of 
psychopathic  cases  is  the  presence  of  the  fear  instinct  based  on 
self-preservation,  which  becomes  associated  with  some  funda- 
mental interest  of  life.  The  interest  may  be  physical  in  regard 
to  bodily  functions,  sexual,  social;  it  may  be  one  of  life  ambitions; 
or  it  may  be  of  a  general  character,  referring  to  the  loss  of 
personality,  or  even  to  the  loss  of  mind.  The  fear  instinct, 
based  on  self-preservation,  may  become  by  cultivation  highly 
specialized,  and  associated  with  normally  indifferent  objects, 
giving  rise  to  various  phobias,  such  as  astrophobia,  agoraphobia, 
claustrophobia,  erythrophobia,  aicmophobia,  and  other  phobias, 
according  to  the  objects  with  which  the  fear  instinct  becomes 
associated.  Objects,  however  indifferent  and  even  pleasant, 
may  by  association  arouse  the  fear  instinct,  and  give  rise  to 
morbid  states,  like  the  "conditional  reflexes"  in  Pavlov's 
animals 

"Events  and  situations  with  fixed  sensory  stimuli,  when 
repeated,  fix  the  neurosis,  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  are 
'the  conditional  reflexes'  in  Pavlov's  experiments.  Other  sets 
of  stimuli  of  an  ideational  character  are  transient  in  duration, 
while  the  general  apprehensive,  subconscious  condition  persists 
unchanged,  seizing  again  and  again  on  ever  new  objects  and 
thoughts,  forming  psychic  compounds  of  various  degrees  of 
stability. " 

Such  was  the  condition  found  in  the  patient.  Well  or- 
ganized, stable  mental  systems  were  formed,  and  kept  on  re- 
curring and  reacting  in  a  reflex  character  in  response  to  external 
and  internal  stimulations.  Mental  systems  became  organized 
as  highly  complicated  "conditional  reflexes." 

Perhaps  a  word  may  be  here  appropriate  as  to  dream- 
symbolization,  so  much  enlarged  upon  by  writers  on  the  subject 
of  dream  consciousness.  Nothing  of  dream  symbolism  was  ob- 
served by  me  in  this  case  as  well  as  in  other  cases  in  which  dream 
activities  were  prominent.  Dreams  are  found  by  me  to  be  auto- 
matic, non-adaptive,  mental  systems,  recurring  under  various 
forms  as  highly  complex  conditional  reflexes,  lacking  adjustment 
to  the  present  world  of  external  and  internal  reality.  In  all  the 
experiments  and  cases,  investigated  by  me,  the  nucleus  of  (lie 
dream  content  is  some  recurring  experience  of  actual  life  which, 
on  account  of  its  emotional  intensity,  has  become  a  well  es- 


142  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 


tablished  fixed  system.  The  symbolization  is  uniformly  supplied 
to  the  patient  by  the  physician  himself.  Dream-symbolism  is  a 
psychopatholngical  artefact.  No  less  of  an  artefact  is  the  searching 
and  finding  some  hidden  meaning  and  wish  in  dreams  which, 
by  their  nature,  belong  essentially  to  non-adaptive  reactions 
referring  to  a  past,  now  dead  and  gone.1 

On  May  21,  1910,  patient  was  put  into  hypnoidal  state.  In* 
this  state  she  was  asked  to  give  an  account  of  her  dreams.  "I 
know  I  dream  something,  but  I  cannot  remember  what  it  is. 
I  sometimes  wake  up  in  a  fright,  but  I  cannot  remember.'* 
Patient  was  then  put  into  hypnosis.  She  went  into  a  deep  state 
verging  on  somnambulism.  When  asked  again  as  to  her  dreams 
"Ugly  faces  are  coming  up."  Patient  could  not  see  anything 
else,  the  ugly  faces  rising  from  the  obscure  subconscious  regions 
seemed  to  have  inhibited  all  other  content  from  rising  to  the 
periphery  of  consciousness.  The  patient  was  then  awakened. 

On  May  23,  patient  was  put  again  into  a  hypnotic  state. 
The  ugly  faces  did  not  seem  to  trouble  her,  she  was  freer  in  her 
account  of  the  dreams.  "As  soon  as  it  is  dark  I  fear  that  some 
one  wants  to  kill  me.  When  I  wake  up  I  feel  great  strain  [patient 
shudders,  and  complains  of  pains  in  the  back].  The  dreams 
come  up  in  spurts,  so  to  say,  at  irregular  intervals."  "Those 
ugly  faces,  those  evil  eyes  come  to  me.  I  see  them  now.  I  see 
them  in  my  sleep.  I  am  afraid  to  go  to  sleep.  I  have  a  feeling 
that  something  evil  will  happen. " 

"When  a  young  girl  I  was  regarded  as  a  medium.  I  fainted 
when  a  man  who  wanted  to  mesmerize  me,  put  my  hand  on  a 
table.  Once  in  going  into  another  room  I  was  suddenly  stopped. 
I  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and  could  not  move.  I  was 
paralyzed  by  that  man,  a  spiritualist.  It  took  time  to  get  out 
of  that  condition,  I  was  so  frightened.  This  spiritualist  said 
that  the  right  side  of  my  body  did  not  respond  as  well  as  the 
left.  I  have  trouble  in  my  right  side,  have  enlargement  of  right 
hip,  have  pain  in  my  right  arm.  I  have  often  presentiments 
which  come  to  pass  true.  My  headaches  come  from  my 
dreams. " 

The  patient  became  restless,  she  wras  quieted,  and  she  was 
asked  to  tell  the  dream  she  had  last  night.  \Vhile  trying  to  re- 
member the  patient  has  motor  disturbances,  she  shudders  sudden- 
ly and  starts  almost  jumping  at  the  least  noise,  and  often  seem- 
ingly without  any  occasion.  There  are  marked  disturbances 

JI  shnll  devote  a  special  study  to  the  psychology  of  dreams  in  a  separate  monograph. 


Boris  Sidis  143 


in  her  respiration.  She  seems  to  live  the  dreams  over  again. 
"Long  ago  I  dreamt  that  I  had  a  fall  in  an  elevator — run 
by  a  woman — I  was  killed— I  am  afraid  of  elevators  since 
then — It  just  came  to  me — never  remembered  it  before." 
Patient  became  restless,  she  was  quieted. 

An  attempt  was  made  to  get  some  more  dreams  out  of  the 
dreamy  regions  of  her  subconsciousness.  Patient  became  very 
restless,  "very  nervous"  as  she  put  it.  Her  face  was  flushed,  her 
features  were  drawn,  and  the  corners  of  the  mouth  began  to 
twitch.  When  I  asked  what  the  trouble  was  with  her,  she  said: 
"Nothing,  it  is  nothing — I  am  nervous — I  am  scared,  afraid" 
She  was  again  quieted,  and  was  put  into  a  deeper  state  of 
hypnosis.  "I  am  afraid  to  go  to  bed,  I  do  not  like  the  coming  of 
night — I  see  darkness — I  see  lots  of  people — They  are  around 
me — very  close — they  want  to  kill  me — they  are  groping  in  the 
dark  for  me — I  feel  them  watch  me — I  have  dreamt  it  many 
times — I  think  I  have  had  this  dream  during  the  last  six  years— 
I  see  their  eyes  shining  in  the  dark — I  am  in  a  dark  cave,  the  place 
is  low  and  overhanging,  presses  me,  crushes  me. — Some  one 
wants  to  hurt  me — My  sister  is  with  me — My  sister  is  not  in 
danger — she  is  not  afraid- — I  told  her  to  come  and  help  me  at  a 
signal,  but  she  did  not  give  the  signal  and  the  fear  woke  me  up." 

Patient  is  afraid  of  lightning.  She  was  struck  by  lightning 
a  few  years  ago.  Since  then  patient  is  very  much  afraid  when  a 
storm  is  approaching. 

May  26,  patient  came  to  the  laboratory  and  said  she  felt 
well  and  was  not  in  the  least  afraid  when  a  storm  came. 
On  the  whole  she  feels  well,  feels  young  again.  The  night  of 
May  24,  the  day  she  was  here,  she  felt  well  and  slept  well 
for  the  first  time.  The  next  night  she  slept  well,  but  there  was 
active  dreaming.  The  day  before  there  were  two  electric  storms, 
but  she  had  no  fear  whatever.  Mr.  B.,  the  patient's  husband, 
confirms  Mrs  B's  account. 

Patient  dreamt,  but  did  not  remember  anything.  Patient 
was  then  put  by  me  in  a  hypnotic  state.  In  hypnosis  she 
dreamt  that  Mr.  B.  hurt  her  in  one  spot  on  her  spine.  The 
pain  was  very  intense.  On  awakening  patient  still  had  a  sensi- 
tive spot.  It  was  insisted  that  patient  will  feel  well  and  feel 
stronger,  more  energetic  than  before,  and  that  the  feeling  of 
illness  would  disappear. 

Patient  also  dreams  that  she  is  in  a  boat  which  is  going 
round  and  round,  a  dream  which  she  often  has,  and  which  dis- 


144  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

tresses  her  much,  she  is  dizzied  on  awakening.  The  day 
before  patient  also  had  hallucination  of  a  figure.  She  could  not 
see  through  the  figure.  It  gave  her  a  shock.  The  vision  lasted 
but  a  few  seconds.  She  felt  its  presence  first,  then  she 
turned  round  and  saw  it.  It  wras  a  human  figure,  but  she  did 
not  know  whether  it  was  man  or  woman.  The  figure  was  dark 
and  surrounded  by  darkness  so  that  she  could  not  notice  details. 
She  always  sees  the  vision  in  the  same  way.  Patient  also  had 
an  auditory  hallucination  the  day  before.  She  heard  a  voice 
calling  her  by  name.  She  saw  no  figure  then.  The  figure  die 
sees  is  like  the  veiled  figures  she  sees  in  her  dreams.  The  visual 
hallucination  dates  some  eight  years  back.  The  hallucination 
began  with  visions  of  figures  of  animals  crowding  round  her, 
then  instead  of  the  animals  the  human  figure  began  to  appear. 
The  figure  does  not  come  up  to  her,  makes  no  attempt  to  talk  to 
her,  and  patient  is  not  afraid,  because  the  figure  appears  in 
broad  daylight.  The  appearance  of  the  vision  has  no  relation  to 
her  states  of  depression  or  to  the  attacks  of  headaches,  it  appears 
even  when  she  feels  well  and  happy. 

After  some  time  other  dreams  began  to  appear.  Patient 
dreamt  of  seeing  a  multitude  of  snakes2 — Was  greatly  frightened 
—Saw  them  killing  a  man. — Tried  to  get  him  away  but  did  not 
succeed.  Was  horrified.  Patient  was  given  suggestions  of 
euphoria  and  then  awakened.  Patient  says  she  feels  much 
better  after  she  leaves  this  place.  She  is  quiet  and  feels  very 
happy.  Before  she  used  to  avoid  company,  but  now  she  even 
ventures  to  visit  people. 

On  May  28,  she  came  complaining  that  she  slept  very  badly 
the  two  nights  and  dreamt  a  great  deal,  but  did  not  remember 
what  it  was.  "My  head  felt  as  if  pressed  together,  woke  up 
with  severe  pain  in  the  head.  The  headache  still  persisted. " 

^In  the  experience  of  humanity  the  snake  is  a  special  object  of  fear  as  evidenced  in  vari- 
ous religions  and  superstitions. 

"^The  great  anthropologist,  Frazer,  refers  to  the  worship  of  poisonous  snakes  and  serpents  by 
primitive  tribes  due  to  fear.  As  W.  Robertson  Smith  puts  it:  "Certain  kinds  of  them  (Jinns 
demons)  frequent  trees  and  even  human  habitations,  and  these  were  identified  with  ike  serpents 
which  appear  and  disappear  so  mysteriously  about  walls  and  the  roots  of  trees."  In  another  place 
Robertson  Smith  lays  special  stress  on  the  fear  aspect  of  snakes  long  persisting  in  the  consciousness 
of  mankind:  "Ultimately  the  only  animals  directly  and  const;  ntly  identified  with  the  Jinn  were 
snakes  and  other  noxious  creeping  things.  It  is  natural  enough  that  these  creatures  of  which  men 
have  a  peculiar  horror  and  which  continue  to  haunt  and  molest  human  habitations  after  wild 
beasts  have  been  driven  out  into  the  desert,  should  be  the  last  to  be  stripped  of  their  natural 
character.  The  snake  is  an  object  of  superstition  in  all  countries. "  .  .  Wild  beasts  in  caves, 
snakes,  serpents,  the  fear  of  which  goes  back  into  the  sub-human  stages  of  man-like  apes  and 
ape-like  man,  keep  on  terrorizing  man  as  jinns  and  demons,  long  persisting  in  the  subconscious- 
nes>  and  the  dream-consciousness. 


Boris  Sidis  145 


Patient  was  put  into  hypnotic  state.  The  headache  was 
gone.  "I  feel  very  happy,  sometimes  like  when  I  was  18— 
Early  this  morning  I  saw  the  figure — just  after  the  dream." 
Patient  could  not  recollect  the  dream.  She  complains  of 
sensation  of  emptiness  in  the  head,  must  make  some  efforts  to 
recollect  the  dreams.  Patient's  mood  changes,  she  is  not  dis- 
couraged: does  not  answer  questions.  Keeps  putting  hands 
up  to  the  face,  rubbing  her  eyes,  attempting  to  open  them. 
After  a  long  pause  patient  exclaims:  "I  don't  like  myself,  don't 
like  anything  about  myself."  When  asked  the  reason  she 
answered:  "I  don't  know7."  Patient  cries,  is  very  restless,  rubs 
her  eyes  ceaselessly,  and  is  greatly  disturbed;  appears  to  be 
deeply  depressed.  After  a  few  minutes  patient  said:  "I  could 
never  be  what  I  was  meant  to  be.  I  meant  to  be  a  musician,  and 
I  had  to  give  it  up.  I  had  to,  on  account  of  my  first  husband. 
It  is  impossible  for  me  to  play  now.  I  have  not  played  for  14 
years."  There  is  little  doubt  that  the  unfortunate  marriage 
with  her  first  husband  so  deeply  affected  the  patient's  life  that 
her  present  condition  is  largely  due  to  that  source.  While  in 
the  hypnotic  state  I  insisted  that  the  patient  should  get  a  piano 
and  begin  to  practice  so  as  to  overcome  her  long  standing  re- 
pugnance to  music.  The  principal  thing  being  that  she  has 
lack  of  confidence  in  herself,  and  fears  she  has  lost  all  her  abilities 
and  energy,  and  is  fit  for  nothing.  Along  with  it  is  associated 
the  fear  that  her  troubles  caused  her  to  lose  so  much  time  that 
now  she  is  getting  old,  her  face  ugly  and  roughened.  She  has 
no  confidence,  obsessed  by  fear,  and  when  she  does  play  she  is 
afraid  someone  may  hear  her.  The  piano  playing  and  its  prac- 
tice was  thus  insisted  on,  and  with  a  suggestion  of  well-being 
the  patient  was  awakened  from  the  hypnotic  state.  There  was 
complete  amnesia  of  what  had  taken  place  in  hypnosis.  Patient 
complained  of  headache. 

Patient  came  July  6.  She  was  greatly  depressed,  had 
many  attacks  of*bad  dreams,  but  had  no  recollection  of  them. 
She  could  not  bring  herself  to  play  the  piano.  She  feels  as  if 
there  is  another  self  in  her  as  "if  two  selves  are  struggling  in 
her."  She  thinks  that  her  old  self  is  dead;  this  distresses  her 
very  much.  In  the  hypnotic  state  she  is  upset  and  cries  much. 
I  made  her  promise  that  she  would  get  a  piano  and  begin  to 
practice.  On  awakening  she  felt  much  better. 

On  June  12,  patient  came  again  in  a  depressed  state. 
She  did  get  a  piano  and  attempted  to  practice.  She  dreamed 


146  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  D.ream  Personality 

much  and  as  usual  did  not  remember  the  content  of  the  dreams. 
On  the  whole,  she  claimed  she  felt  worse  than  she  had  ever  felt 
before.  Her  life,  her  former  self  which  she  regarded  as  dead 
began  to  move  in  her,  she  felt  distressed. 

Patient  was  put  into  hypnosis.  She  was  then  asked  to  tell 
the  dreams  she  had.  "I  was  running  away  from  something— 
I  know  there  were  people — saw  ugly  faces — same  that  I  see  here. 

—I  always  see  these  faces  in  my  dreams  and  I  am  afraid  of  them. 

—It  is  24  years  since  I  have  begun  to  see  these  faces.  It  is 
since  the  time  I  have  begun  to  be  unhappy. — The  faces  are  like 
those  of  my  first  husband.  I  see  the  faces  asleep  and  awake. 
I  do  not  see  them  when  I  start  to  play. "  "I  am  afraid  of  people 
because  I  have  no  confidence  in  myself. "  It  was  then  suggested 
that  she  should  play,  that  it  would  do  her  good  and  that  the 
faces  will  become  pleasant. 

Next  day  when  patient  came  the  faces  still  persisted  in 
coming  to  her.  In  the  course  of  the  questions  while  patient  was 
in  hypnotic  state,  she  told  me  that  when  young  she  had  a  very 
ugly  teacher,  the  faces  look  like  him  and  also  like  that  of  the 
former  husband, — the  faces  seem  to  have  blended.  She  kept 
on  practicing  on  the  piano  and  was  getting  on  well.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  old  life  was  returning  to  her.  She  still  saw  the  veiled 
figure  coming  to  her,  though  she  was  not  afraid  of  it.  She  sees 
the  figure  and  sometimes  feels  its  presence,  but  when  she  turns 
round  the  figure  disappears.  It  was  then  suggested  to  her  that 
she  wrould  sleep  well  and  have  no  dreams  whatever. 

There  is  one  thing  that  is  now  gradually  developing  and  that 
is  the  influence  of  S.'s  personality.  She  needs  his  support  and 
influence,  and  is  afraid  that  she  might  lose  it,  that  she  would 
not  be  of  any  interest  after  the  study  of  her  case.  She  seems 
to  need  a  director,  she  lost  her  former  personality,  and  lost  along 
with  it  all  will  power  to  direct  and  control  her  life.  S.  had  to 
promise  her  that  he  will  put  her  in  a  condition  n  which  she  will 
be  able  to  control  her  own  fate.  Last  night  sh^  had  a  headache, 
slept  badly  and  felt  depressed  when  she  woke  up.  She  feels 
better  now  in  the  hypnotic  state.  Patient  says  that  she  begins 
to  get  some  comfort  from  her  practice  and  play  on  the 
piano.  It  was  then  again  suggested  to  her  that  she  should  keep 
up  her  play,  and  was  then  awrakened. 

When  patient  came  next  day  she  told  me  that  she  felt 
sleepy  and  heavy  on  going  home.  She  had  no  memory  as  to 
what  had  taken  place  in  hypnosis.  In  fact  she  could  not  even 


Boris  Si  din  147 


tell  how  she  got  home.  It  seemed  that  the  hypnotic  state 
persisted  after  the  apparent  awakening.  Nothing  more  could 
be  obtained  of  her  when  put  into  hypnoidal  state.  After 
a  few  minutes  she  said  "I  feel  now  sleepy  and  tired."  When 
put  into  hypnotic  state  and  asked  about  the  dreams  she  had  the 
night  before,  patient  at  first  said  she  could  not  remember,  but 
after  a  few  moments  the  dream  came  back  in  a  rather  vague 
form.  "  It  was  dark. "  The  hypnotic  state  was  then  deepened. 
The  dream  came  back  in  a  clear  form.  "I  was  on  a  boat  going 
around. "  She  then  became  greatly  excited.  The  memory  be- 
came very  vivid.  The  experience  ceased  in  fact  to  be  a  mem- 
ory and  became  semi-hallucinatory.  She  began  to  live  over  the 
dream  experience  in  her  hypnotic  state.  She  was  like  one 
frightened  and  cried  "There  were  many  people — I  was  afraid- 
there  was  a  big  wheel — I  was  on  that  wheel — I  was  very  much 
afraid — I  was  shipwrecked  once.  It  was  on  the  middle  of  the 
ocean — 13  years  ago — Since  then  I  dream  of  boats."  Patient's 
husband  confirmed  this  fact  of  shipwreck  which  left  a  deep  after- 
effect on  the  patient's  life  and  dream  activities. 

In  the  next  hypnosis  on  the  17th,  patient  was  in  far  better 
spirits.  The  subconsciously  organized  systems  troubling  the 
patient  in  the  form  of  dreams  and  hallucinations,  causing  her 
dullness,  headache,  and  making  her  unfit  to  fix  the  attention 
on  anything,  as  well  as  depriving  her  of  her  memory,  all  these 
parasitic  systems  were  gradually  giving  way.  Patient  told  me 
when  in  hypnosis  that  she  dreamt  she  saw  me,  and  that  I  was  go- 
ing to  clear  her  brain.  She  felt  well  during  the  day  and  played 
piano  for  two  hours  which  was  not  usual  with  her.  On  the 
whole  she  feels  much  better  in  her  mind,  "is  able  to  read,  under- 
stands what  she  reads,  and  is  even  able  to  remember  what  she 
had  read."  Suggestion  of  euphoria  was  given  to  her,  and  then 
she  was  awakened.  There  is  difficulty  in  arousing  her  from  the 
trance  state,  she  passes  gradually  from  the  trance  state  into  the 
waking  state,  and  sometimes  the  tendency  is  to  persist  in  it, 
special  insistence  is  requisite  to  keep  her  awake. 

The  day  after  patient  came  in  a  state  of  great  mental  de- 
pression. She  had  some  dreams  about  carriages,  boats,  hills, 
and  accidents.  Could  not  remember  any  details. 

Patient  was  then  put  into  hypnosis,  and  was  asked  to  des- 
cribe the  dreams  in  detail:  "Yesterday  I  felt  better  up  to  S 
o'clock  in  the  evening;  then  I  felt  restless  and  depressed  did 
not  know  why."  The  hypnotic  state  was  then  intensified  and 


148  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

deepened.  Patient  sighs  and  is  getting  more  and  more  restless. 
She  was  asked  the  cause  of  the  depression  and  she  again  an- 
swered she  did  not  know.  "Melancholy  came  over  me." 
Soon  she  became  very  restless  giving  rise  to  starts  and  jumps 
in  her  hypnotic  state.  When  asked  why  she  started  so  violently, 
patient  said:  "Something entered  my  mind,  it  comes  of  itself." 
Insistence  upon  deeper  sleep  and  also  on  her  telling  the  cause  of 
the  excitement  and  why  the  unaccountable  onset  of  depression. 
Patient  refuses  to  tell,  says  it  comes  from  her  nature.  "Feeling 
by  itself,"  thinks  she  has  been  born  with  it.  Even  in  the  happy 
day  of  her  "young  life"  she  had  these  onsets  of  sadness  and 
depression.  Further  insistence  makes  patient  irritable  and  rest- 
less. She  repeats  the  same  thing  that  the  depression  sets  on 
suddenly.  Patient  was  awakened  with  suggestion  of  euphoria. 

Next  day  patient  came,  complaining  of  having  passed  a  bad 
night,  had  a  bad  headache  and  felt  great  depression.  Patient 
was  put  into  the  state  of  hypnosis  and  asked  the  cause  of  the 
headache.  The  depression,  a  feeling  of  heaviness  came  in  the 
evening  about  8  o'clock.  "What  were  the  ideas  that  entered 
your  mind  at  that  time?"  "I  felt  like  injuring  myself. "  While 
remaining  quiet  in  the  hypnotic  state  for  several  moments  pa- 
tient suddenly  exclaimed  "Strange,  horrible  eyes — I  see  them 
again."  Patient  became  excited,  tossed  about  and  moaned.  I 
insisted  that  the  faces  were  only  pictures  but  no  realities,  and 
that  she  should  not  be  afraid.  After  a  few  minutes  patient  be- 
came quiet.  I  suggested  to  her  that  she  could  see  the  faces  clear 
and  distinct,  that  they  were  images,  that  they  would  cease  to 
trouble  her.  Nothing  further  could  be  obtained  of  the  pa- 
tient, she  was  brought  out  of  hypnosis  as  usual  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  euphoria. 

When  the  patient  came  next  day  she  told  me  that  she  slept 
better,  and  that  she  had  no  dreams,  that  she  played  on  the 
piano,  but  in  a  listless  way. 

Patient  was  put  into  hypnosis.  Asked  whether  she  dreamt 
she  replied  without  hesitation  that  she  dreamt,  but  that  she 
could  not  remember  what  it  was  about.  I  insisted  she  should 
tell  me  the  content,  but  nothing  could  be  obtained.  After  much 
insistence  patient  suddenly  said  that  it  was  not  a  dream.  "It 
is  something  that  comes  over  me — since  childhood — something 
big,  colossal — frightens  me.  I  cannot  recall  how  it  came  the 
first  time.  It  is  not  at  all  like  a  dream.  It  appears  so  real— 
I  see  it  and  feel  it. — It  comes  when  I  am  nervous — I  am  greatly 


Boris  Sidis  149 


frightened  when  it  comes. "  At  the  end  of  the  hypnotic  state 
patient  suddenly  said  in  that  dreamy  abstracted  way  character- 
istic of  hypnosis  "I  am  going  to  be  happier."  Awakened  with 
suggestion  of  euphoria,  and  also  with  the  suggestion  that  she 
would  have  no  distressing  dreams. 

On  June  21,  patient  told  of  the  content  of  a  dream  about 
boats,  of  being  on  the  point  of  drowning,  and  then  rescued.  This 
was  the  same  dream  which  recurred  so  often  in  the  patient's 
dream  consciousness,  and  which  was  traced  to  the  actual  experi- 
ence and  shock  of  the  shipwreck  in  the  middle  of  the  ocean. 

For  the  first  time  patient  confessed  frankly  of  the  insistent 
ideas  of  suicide  and  homicide.  These  insistent  ideas  torment 
her.  Patient  is  possessed  by  the  idea  of  killing  her  husband,  and 
of  attempting  suicide  by  jumping  out  of  the  window.  Some- 
times she  has  an  irresistible  impulse  of  assailing  people,  especially 
such  that  are  near  to  her.  Patient  suffers  greatly  from  these 
almost  irresistible  ideas  which  are  so  insistent  occasionally  that 
she  seems  almost  to  lose  control  over  herself.  She  is  sure  she 
will  not  follow  the  impulse.  The  very  idea  of  it  is  repugnant  to 
her,  but  she  cannot  rid  herself  of  the  idea. 

For  a  couple  of  days  the  suggestion  of  euphoria  seemed  to 
have  taken  some  effect,  but  afterwards  the  dreams  of  darkness, 
of  the  ugly  faces,  of  the  climbing  and  clambering  all  kinds  of 
impassable  roads  recurred.  Once  the  dream  was  so  terrifying 
that  she  awoke  with  a  scream  and  implored  her  husband  to  stay 
near  her.  She  did  not  remember  the  content  of  the  dream. 
When  put  into  hypnosis,  she  began  to  sigh,  to  shudder,  finally 
said  she  felt  as  if  she  fell  out  through  the  window.  Dreamt  she 
was  near  the  window  and  fell  out.  She  does  not  remember  to 
have  cried  out,  but  on  awakening  she  remembered  she  asked 
her  husband  not  to  leave  her.  Suddenly  patient  sat  up  and 
'exclaimed  "I  feel  a  choking  as  I  felt  last  night."  Patient  was 
living  over  the  experiences  of  the  night  before.  "It  was  dark, 
I  did  not  know  where  I  was — and  I  fell  out  of  the  window." 
It  is  quite  probable  that  the  suicidal  ideas  have  strengthened 
the  dream  consciousness.  The  psychognosis  was  given  to  the 
patient  while  she  was  in  the  hypnotic  state.  Moral  fortitude 
was  insisted  upon.  The  patient  was  then  awakened  and  felt 
well.  There  was  partial  memory  of  the  hypnotic  state. 

The  day  after  she  complained  of  depression.  In  hypnosis 
she  described  a  dream  of  the  shipwreck  which  she  experienced 


150  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

again  in  her  dream  state.  It  was  this  that  upset  her.  She  felt 
better  on  wakening. 

Patient  came  30th  of  June,  said  she  felt  better,  but  that 
the  dreams  were  as  active  as  before.  She  could  not  remem- 
ber the  contents.  The  patient  was  put  into  hypnosis.  It 
appeared  that  the  night  before  she  dreamt  of  seeing  a  man 
attacking  another,  attempting  to  kill  him.  This  dream  referred 
to  an  actual  experience  in  the  patient's  life,  an  experience  which 
greatly  affected  her,  gave  her  such  a  shock  as  to  impress  deeply 
her  subconsciousness  and  furnish  afterwards  material  for  dreams 
for  a  long  time  to  come.  This  dream  terrified  her.  A  little 
later  in  the  night  she  had  another  dream  related  to  the  first, 
but  this  time  even  more  distressing,  it  related  to  her  own 
brother  about  whom  she  worried  so  much  lately.  The  brother 
had  some  family  troubles.  He  wanted  to  kill  his  wife.  "I 
see  it  now.  He  got  hold  of  her  and  choked  her.  I  tried  to 
push  her  behind  me  so  that  he  could  not  reach  her."  The 
dreams  emerged  with  great  difficulty,  and  came  up  in  fragments. 
"I  saw  him — he  was  angry — he  said  nothing. — Then  the  whole 
thing  came. — There  is  a  young  girl.— I  never  saw  her,  but  I 
know  her — he  came  up  to  her,  to  his  wife,  and  attempted  to 
choke  her. "  Patient  was  brought  out  oe  hypnosis  and  as  usual 
euphoria  suggested. 

For  a  few  days  the  patient  felt  somewhat  better,  though 
the  dreams  did  not  stop,  but  they  were  of  a  rather  trivial  charac- 
ter, and  did  not  trouble  her  much.  The  dream-consciousness 
was  so  highly  developed  in  the  patient  that  its  activity  could 
not  be  suppressed.  This  highly  developed  dream-consciousness 
formed  a  parasitic  secondary  personality. 

Patient  told  me  that  she  was  greatly  frightened  by  a  black 
cat  which  came  near  her  and  then  seemingly  wanted  to  jump  on 
her  breast.  In  hypnosis  patient  said  that  since  her  childhood 
she  was  afraid  of  cats,  especially  of  black  cats.  She  does  not 
remember  that  a  cat  ever  attacked  her  when  a  child.  As  patient 
goes  into  deeper  hypnosis  she  complains  that  she  still  sees  the 
cat,  a  big  cat.  She  does  not  remember  when  she  first  began  to 
dream  of  cats.  She  has  hallucinations  of  cats,  but  the  hallu- 
cinations are  of  a  rather  peculiar  character.  While  they  seem 
to  be  of  a  visual  nature  she  does  not  see  them,  but  she  feels  them 
as  if  she  sees  them  (a  pseudo-hallucination).  After  a  long 
effort  patient  reminded  herself  that  when  very  young  she  was 
frightened  by  a  cat  that  jumped  on  her  shoulder.  "I  remember 


Boris  Sidis  151 


a  cat  got  under  my  bed — I  chased  it  and  the  cat  turned  on  me. " 
While  in  the  hypnotic  state  patient  is  restless.  "It  seems  to 
me  I  see  now  the  cats — I  went  for  something  into  the  kitchen — 
It  was  dark — the  eyes  shine — I  see  myself  a  child  twelve  years 
old — I  was  so  frightened — I  ran. — I  have  dreamt  of  them  since— 
in  my  dreams  I  have  seen  many  animals — then  I  used  to  see 
those  animals  at  daytime — they  were  a41  around  me — have  seen 
many  of  them."  Patient  awakened,  suggestion  of  euphoria 
given  her. 

For  a  couple  of  days  patient  was  comparatively  quiet;  her 
dreams  were  not  distressing,  but  the  incessant  activity  went 
on  as  before, — it  could  not  be  suppressed.  The  dreams  were  of 
the  ordinary  type  of  current  life,  but  they  were  now  and  then 
tinged  by  an  unpleasant  affective  mood,  characteristic  of  the 
subconscious  parasitic  systems. 

On  July  3,  patient  was  put  into  hypnosis,  and  again  a 
dream  came  up.  She  dreamt  that  she  slept  in  a  very  high 
building.  The  bed  was  near  the  window,  and  she  was  afraid 
that  she  might  fall  out  of  the  window.  This  is  a^xlream  which 
comes  to  the  patient  in  different  forms.  It  seems  also  to  form 
the  basis  of  her  suicidal  insistent  ideas.  "I  saw  a  man — an  old 
man — I  can  see  him  now  very  clearly. — His  eyes  follow  me — 
has  grey  beard — very  dirty. "  When  asked  whether  she  knew 
him,  whether  she  ever  met  him  before,  she  at  first  answered  in 
the  negative,  but  soon  after  said:  "Yes — some  years  ago  a  man 
like  him  followed  me — early  evening — I  did  not  like  it — he  was 
looking  at  me — I  ran  into  the  neighbouring  store — then  he  was 
gone". 

"It  seemed  to  me  I  was  in  a  cave — there  were  many 
women  dressed  alike  and  I  was  dressed  the  same — I  thought  we 
were  all  lunatics".  She  is  afraid  to  stay  in  rooms  with  low 
ceilings,  a  sort  of  clausterphobia.  The  patient  continued :"  It  is 
all  dark — I  see  some  rocks — trees  and  some  shrubs — it  is  a  small 
cave — I  cannot  stand  up  in  it — The  ceiling  is  too  low.  I  have 
the  feeling  as  if  some  things  come  down  on  the  head.  I  have 
been  in  such  caves  near  Niagara  Falls."  The  patient  then 
stopped  for  a  few  moments.  Suddenly  she  gave  a  start  and 
jumped  as  if  in  great  fright.  When  asked  what  she  saw,  she 
replied  in  some  excitement:  "Felt  just  like  waves  going  over  my 
head — in  the  ship— we  are  going  to  get  drowned — it  is  a  storm— 
This  trance  hallucination  disappeared.  Patient  returned  again 
to  the  dreams  of  the  cave.  "It  was  about  eight  years  ago 


152  .A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

that  I  first  began  to  dream  about  caves.  I  was  very  ill  at  that 
time — suffered  from  malaria.  I  dreamt,  it  seemed  to  me  in  my 
imagination  (possibly  in  delirium)  that  the  ceiling  came  down 
over  my  head.  I  was  so  frightened. "  After  this  the  patient 
wras  awakened.  It  was  insisted  she  should  have  pleasant 
dreams.  On  coming  out  of  hypnosis  she  felt  well  and  cheerful. 

I  tried  my  best  to»  insist  that  she  should  remember  the 
dreams  in  her  waking  state,  and  at  the  same  time  attempted  by 
conversations  to  strengthen  her  both  in  the  hypnotic  and  waking 
conditions.  -  The  patient  was  awakened  and  felt  much  better. 
The  depression  disappeared. 

A  few  days  later  patient  told  me  in  hypnotic  state  that  she 
thought  she  wTas  dead,  that  her  real  self,  what  she  was  and  what 
she  was  to  be,  wTas  dead,  that  she  felt  sometimes  like  making 
away  with  herself, — life  was  not  wrorth  while  living.  Now  and 
then  the  idea  gets  possession  of  her  to  jump  out  of  the  window, 
she  thought  many  times  of  it,  but  she  really  would  not  carry 
it  out.  The  suggestion  given  to  her  was  to  the  effect  of  re- 
vival of  her  former  ambition  and  of  her  former  self,  that  not  all 
was  dead,  that  her  good  old  self,  apparently  dead,  will  come  to 
life  again,  that  she  must  not  despair  and  give  up  things  without 
any  hope. 

Patient  also  told  me  that  she  was  afraid  to  come  to  the 
laboratory,  that  she  could  not  account  for  the  fear,  but  that 
something  seems  to  compel  her  to  go  against  her  will.  She  is 
sometimes  frightened  at  the  changes  that  suddenly  come  over 
her,  appear  to  sweep  over  her.  She  sometimes  feels  suddenly 
that  she  is  a  newr  person,  that  others  notice  it. 

The  patient  then  for  a  couple  of  weeks  felt  well,  as  if  she 
were  a  different  person,  the  same  as  she  has  been  when  young. 
The  dream  activity  did  not  abate,  however,  but  the  dreams 
seem  to  have  been  of  a  disconnected  character.  On  July  8, 
however,  the  dream  consciousness  began  to  wTeave  again  the 
dream  experiences  which  so  affected  the  patient's  life.  The  pa- 
tient in  her  waking  state  could  not  remember  the  dream.  She 
knew  that  she  dreamt,  but  the  details  and  even  the  general 
character  of  the  dream  could  not  be  recalled.  Patient  appears 
to  be  quiet,  but  by  no  means  cheerful.  She  was  then  put  into 
hypnosis.  During  hypnotization  there  were  slight  twitchings 
and  deep,  rapid  respiration.  When  asked  whether  she  still  was 
afraid  to  come  to  the  laboratory  patient  answered  in  the  negative. 
Patient  was  then  asked  of  the  dreams  of  last  night.  As  she 


Boris  Sidis  153 


appeared  to  live  the  dreams  over  again,  and  that  in  a  vivid 
visual  form,  she  was  asked  the  question:  "What  do  you  see?" 
"A  garden — it  is  very  dark — I  cannot  get  in — I  want  to — . " 
"Where?"  "I  do  not  know — Very  dark — the  tree  grows 
over — I  hear  voices — I  cannot  get  in — there  is  a  big  fence  all 
around  it. "  After  a  few  moments  patient  became  rather  quiet, 
only  slight,  occasional  motor  reactions.  "I  am  inside  now-^I 
am  walking  down  one  of  those  dark  alleys — There  is  somebody 
there  I  do  not  know  who — it  is  dark — I  hear  voices — I  hear 
whispering — I  am  afraid  to  go  there. — They  are  waiting  for  me 
—I  want  to  go  away — . "  Suggestion:  "listen  well. " —Patient 
shudders  in  fright,  jumps— "I  do  not  want  to — can't  hear  a 
word — they  talk  together — they  whisper."  Patient  became 
quiet.  "Where  are  you  now?"  "I  do  not  see  anything 
now—  After  a  few  moments—  "I  am  in  a  house — my  sister — 
house  very  simple,  nothing  in  the  house — don't  talk  to  me — 
The  patient  came  out  of  this  state.  A  little  later  she  went  on 
saying:  "It  is  going — something  happened  to  me,  but  I  do  not 
know  what — did  I  do  anything  wrong?  I  feel  as  if  there  were 
something  in  me,  struggling — trying  to  get  out — (puts  hand  on 
chest)  as  if  there  were  two  inside  of  me.  I  have  done  some- 
thing in  a  dream  last  night — it  was  my  sister  I  tried — in  the 
same  house — I  choked  her — it  seems  to  me  I  am  choking  her. 
I  am  wicked."  Patient  became  excited  and  cried,  her 
face  became  flushed.  She  was  quieted  and  became  composed. 

On  the  9th,  patient  came  again,  and  again  the  dream  con- 
sciousness was  at  work,  developing  its  fantastic  combinations. 

In  hypnosis  patient  said:  "I  see  the  figures — they  are  just 
moving  around  me — I  want  to  see  their  faces — cannot — , 
(respiration  rapid) — they  are  very  tall;  it  is  evening — two 
figures — they  are  crowding  on  me — skeletons! — in  a  church 
yard — white  faces — like  the  faces  I  saw  before — I  can't  run  away 
—everything  goes  round — (Patient,  as  if  dizzy,  and  frightened). 
I  am  still  in  the  church — red  brick — tower — I  can  see  the  bell- 
several  side  buildings — high  hedges"  "Have  you  been  there 
before?"  "Yes,  not  long  ago,  last  year  in  the  village  W.,  I 
remember  walking  there  with  Miss  F. "  Patient  then  became 
quiet;  no  further  dreams  could  be  obtained.  Patient  complained 
of  fatigue.  She  felt  in  company  that  she  could  not  well  attend 
to  conversations,  that  she  could  not  hear  well  what  was  spoken 
to  her.  Suggestion  feeling  well,  no  dreams,  no  fatigue.  Awak- 
ened, patient  feeling  well. 


154  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

The  patient  came  two  days  later,  and  as  usual  the  suggestion 
had  no  effect;  the  dream  activity  went  on  as  before.  The  patient 
was  nervous  and  upset  in  consequence.  When  put  into  hypnosis, 
patient  is  restless,  jerks  her  arms,  shivers,  and  at  times  jumps 
violently.  Patient  holds  hand  up  expectantly,  as  if  something  is 
coming.  "Big  flat  country — no  trees — (sighs) — it  hurts  my 
head — stones,  fields — I  have  to  walk  along — it  hurts  my  feet — I 
fall — (sighs,  moans)flies  all  overnie  (keeps  on  brushing  her  face)— 
they  are  ugly — Some  one  calls  me  to  go  on — but  I  can't  go — the 
stones  are  so  hard  and  sharp — (keeps  on  brushing  flies  from  face) 
it  is  my  sister — I  can  see  her  a  long  way  off — I  can  hear  her — 
flies — (brushes  her  face) — yes,  twilight.- — Sister  does  not  want  to 
come  to  me.  I  walk  straight  ahead.  Nothing  but  stones  and 
water — fields,  ditches  between  the  fields — . "  Here  patient 
relapsed  into  silence.  She  does  not  brush  her  face  with  her 
hand,  as  if  to  drive  away  flies.  Starts  violently,  jumps,  throws 
up  hands:  "It  is  some  dark  place  (respiration  very  rapid)  I 
think  I  am  dead — I  can  see  myself  though  I  am  on  the  ground- 
arm,  leg  drawn  up — head  hurts — (breathes  hard — ) "  Nothing 
more  could  be  obtained,  patient  was  awakened.  Patient  was 
then  put  again  into  hypnosis.  She  is  quiet.  "I  feel  something 
in  my  head."  —What  do  you  see  now?—  "Darkness — all  dark— 
(starts) — I  feel  myself  way  down — I  hear  people — all  about  me — 
(Jumps  up  from  couch  in  great  terror)  A  snake!  (face 
flushed.  Respiration  rapid) — I  just  saw  its  head—  Patient 
was  quietened,  and  brought  out  of  hypnosis.  Suggestions  of 
euphoria. 

Two  days  later,  July  14,  patient  came  saying  she  kept  on 
dreaming,  could  not  recollect  the  content.  In  hypnosis  she  told 
me  that  she  dreamt  of  the  cat  jumping  at  her.  She  also  had 
another  dream  which  seemed  to  have  affected  her  more.  She 
dreamt  she  saw  her  mother  who  was  trying  to  cheer  her  up. 
She  was  somewhat  depressed  the  day  after,  but  felt  better  in 
the  afternoon. 

When  patient  came  next  she  referred  again  to  her  hallu- 
cinatory experiences,  and  I  found  out  that  she  had  at  different 
times  a  number  of  them  of  similar  character.  In  hypnosis 
patient  told  me  she  had  dreams.  From  the  hypnotic  state  she 
gradually  passed  into  the  hallucinatory,  hypnoidic  state  in  which 
she  lived  the  dream  experience  over  again.  Patient  becomes 
restless,  respiration  rapid.  "A  cat,  a  nasty  cat — brown  back 
— it  has  an  ugly  face — but  it  looks  more  like  a  human  face — I  see 


Boris  Sidis  155 


a  big  square  house — lights  in  the  garden — I  stay  outside  in  the 
garden — near  the  water — somebody  pulling  me — got  away 
(frightened) — I  am  down  on  the  ground  and  rolling  away." 
Gradually  another  dream  came  to  the  surface.  A  dream  re- 
ferring to  the  day  before. 

"Mother  sitting  near  a  table,  her  head  bent  down  on  her 
arms.  I  am  kneeling  down  trying  to  cheer  her — my  dead  sister 
sitting  behind  me.  When  suddenly  I  see  myself  in  her."  Pa- 
tient was  then  awakened. 

The  day  after  she  told  in  hypnosis  about  dreams,  of  boats, 
of  people  and  of  shadows  following  her.  This  last  feature  of 
dreams  could  be  traced  back  to  her  first  husband  who  tracked 
her  in  her  coming  and  going.  She  had  great  difficulty  in  ridding 
herself  of  him.  When  patient  came  out  of  her  hypnotic  state, 
she  could  not  remember  the  experiences  she  had  gone  through. 
Gradually,  by  effort,  and  by  insistence  did  the  experiences 
emerge  in  fragments  from  the  depths  of  the  subconscious  in 
which  they  were  seemingly  buried.  It  was  easier  for  her  to 
have  the  subconscious  experiences  recovered  with  her  eyes  shut 
than  with  her  eyes  open. 

On  July  21  patient  was  put  into  hypnosis  and  while  passing 
through  the  dream  experiences  pneumographic  tracings  were 
taken  of  her.  Patient  dreamt  of  something  shapeless  following 
her,  then  taking  the  shape  of  a  human  face,  and  then  of  some 
animal,  attempting  to  attack  her.  She  was  terrified.  "Some- 
thing choked  me,  and  I  then  woke  up."  The  night  before  she 
dreamt  she  was  travelling,  "I  am  always  travelling  in  my 
dreams."  The  day  before  she  felt  depressed,  put  out  by  some 
trifles. 

On  July  24  there  were  dreams  as  usual,  dreams  which  the 
patient  could  not  recall.  In  hypnosis  she  told  me  that  my 
assistant  appeared  to  her  in  the  dream,  and  insisted  that  she 
should  write  a  letter  in  which  she  should  state  that  she  was  very 
sick.  She  refused  to  comply,  but  finally  she  was  forced  to  do  it. 
She  also  saw  me  in  her  dream  and  I  charged  her  with  frivolity 
and  that  I  did  not  want  to  have  any  thing  to  do  with  her. 
At  the  same  time  the  dreams  began  to  take  a  somewhat  different 
character,  they  were  not  so  unpleasant  and  they  were  more  of  a 
commonplace  character,  referring  to  her  everyday  experience. 
She  complained  that  occasionally  a  feeling  came  over  her,  as  if 
she  had  done  something  evil,  and  she  felt  depressed,  but  this 
feeling  soon  passed  off. 


150  A  Clinical  Study  of  a  Dream  Personality 

On  25th  of  July  patient  came  to  the  laboratory.  She  felt 
well,  played  on  the  piano  and  enjoyed  it,  she  could  read,  could 
remember  the  reading,  and  took  an  interest  in  it.  The  dream 
life  was  still  active,  but  it  was  not  unpleasant.  She  told  me 
she  felt  better  than  she  had  ever  felt  before.  I  then  tested 
her  visual  hallucinations  by  making  her  gaze  into  an  illuminated 
surface.  A  glass  of  water  was  put  on  a  white  surface,  and  a 
light  was  made  to  shine  through  the  water.  The  patient  fixed 
her  attention  on  the  water.  Gradually  objects  and  even  whole 
scenes  began  to  develop,  and  she  began  to  describe  them  as 
they  emerged  one  after  another:  "I  see  the  door  step — it 
is  gone  now — I  was  sitting  on  last  night — see  two  women 
in  light  dresses — it  is  gone — see  the  corner  of  the  street — (rubs 
her  eyes) — I  see  a  bed — it  is  gone — it  makes  me  sleepy— 
(shades  eyes  from  light).  I  see  some  shadow  of  a  man  walking 
over  a  field — there  is  a  lake — it  is  very  pretty  though — I  see 
myself  sitting — high  above  the  water — on  the  other  side  there 
is  a  big  house.  In  front  there  is  a  fountain  and  bush  (stops 
looking)  I  cannot  see  any  more,  my  eyes  ache;  the  lake  is  so 
shiny. "  After  a  few  minutes  she  was  asked  to  look  again.  In 
a  few  moments  the  following  vision  developed  which  was  des- 
cribed by  the  patient.  "I  see  a  funny  looking  wagon  coming 
nearer — can  look  into  it  from  the  front — . "  Here  the  experi- 
ment had  to  be  interrupted,  because  the  patient's  eyes  began  to 
hurt.  She  was  put  into  hypnosis,  and  asked  whether  the  visions 
Were  familiar  to  her.  She  could  not  identify  them.  The 
visions  were  reproduced  in  this  state,  but  no  recognition  followed. 
The  house  was  the  only  object  that  was  identified. 

Next  day  patient  objected  to  look  into  the  water,  because 
she  was  in  a  peculiar  state  she  did  not  like.  After  some  per- 
suasion she  consented.  "Is  the  water  becoming  turbid?"  "No,  I  do 
not  see  the  water.  I  do  not  know  what  it  is.  It  looks  like  sand 
— it  seems  to  be  near  the  sea — brown  grass — somebody  walking 
— two — small  figures  (laughs) — it  is  myself."  Here  patient  be- 
gan to  complain  of  fatigue  and  specks  before  the  eyes. 

For  a  few  days  the  dreams  were  of  a  disconnected  character, 
and  were  recollected  with  some  difficulty,  but  they  were  either 
trivial  experiences  of  her  everyday  life  which  did  not  in  the  least 
upset  her,  or  they  were  fragmentary  experiences  of  her  earlier 
dreams,  but  in  such  a  confused  state  that  they  could  hardly  be 
recognized.  The  persistent  dreams  were  rapidly  disintegrating. 


Boris  Sidis  157 


The  only  dream  that  disconcerted  her  was  a  dream  of  her  mother. 
She  thought  she  saw  her  mother  and  was  glad  to  see  her  alive, 
but  was  greatly  disappointed  on  waking.  Patient  felt  well. 

She  came  the  next  day.  When  put  into  hypnosis  she  told 
me  that  she  dreamt  that  in  her  head  was  something  which  ex- 
ploded. She  woke  up.  I  told  her  that  she  will  see  her  mother 
in  sleep  and  that  the  old  habit  of  dreaming  will  be  gone.  The 
mother  will  tell  her  that  she  will  dream  no  more.  The  patient 
remarked:  "If  you  stop  my  dreams,  I  should  still  dream  about 
my  mother."  Patient  awakened  in  good  condition. 

Patient  came  August  5.  In  hypnotic  state  she  told  me  that 
she  had  seen  her  mother,  but  that  the  mother  did  not  speak  to 
her.  She  was  greatly  concerned  about  her  mother  as  when  alive. 

The  subconscious  and  dissociated  memories  brought  out  in 
hypnosis  seemed  to  have  gradually  become  organized  and  formed 
a  personality  of  a  secondary  character  which  the  patient  felt  all 
the  while  and  which  criticized  her  and  found  fault  with  the 
patient.  The  patient  called  her  "she."  "I  see  her,  I  feel  her 
more  than  I  see  her. "  It  was  herself  which  she  regarded  as  dead 
now  come  to  life  again.  The  patient  did  not  like  "her."  She  is 
with  me  all  the  time.  She  "looks  like  me  when  I  was  18.  She 
is  becoming  stronger.  She  talks  to  me  and  tells  me  of  the  bad 
things  I  do.  She  is  my  monitor. " 

The  dreams  she  has  now  are  of  a  different  nature  and  do  not 
refer  to  her  previous  frightful  dreams.  Occasionally  when  she 
goes  to  sleep  her  life  stands  revealed  before  her.  She  feels  she 
should  be  as  she  had  been  before.  Now  and  then  Dr.  S.  is 
brought  into  the  dream  life,  and  the  old  distressing  dreams  are 
inhibited.  The  dreams,  unlike  the  previous  state,  are  now  fully 
remembered  on  awakening  from  the  sleep.  Patient  improved 
considerably  by  December  27,  when  she  ceased  coming. 


CONSCIOUS  BEHAVIOR  AND  THE  ABNORMAL 

BY    J.    R.    KANTOR 

UNIVERSITY    OF    CHICAGO 

PSYCHOLOGY  as  a  definite,  concrete  science  has  gained 
much  valuable  information  from  related  fields,  and  in 
particular  it  has  derived  great  value  from  its  relation 
to  psychiatry,  which  discipline  may  in  some  sense  be 
considered  as  a  domain  of  psychological  application.  The 
psychologist  has  obtained  from  psychiatry  not  only  the  oppor- 
tunity to  study  variations  of  mental  phenomena,  but  because  of 
the  insistent  problems  involved  in  those  phenomena,  he  has  been 
brought  to  appreciate  the  necessity  of  testing  out  the  concepts 
employed  in  dealing  with  mental  phenomena  in  general.  It  is 
perhaps  unnecessary  to  remind  psychologists  of  the  masses  of 
information  which  they  have  derived  from  related,  applied  fields, 
concerning  sensory  processes,  memory,  association,  sensory 
cortical  localization,  and  other  equally  important  facts.  A 
sufficient  reminder  of  the  advantages  accruing  to  psychology 
from  observation  of  abnormal  behavior  is  afforded  by  reference 
to  some  of  the  excellencies  of  James'  "Principles,"  at  the  time 
of  its  publication,  and  the  present  value  of  the  concept  of  per- 
sonality in  the  study  of  conscious  phenomena.1  In  this  con- 
nection we  may  also  refer  to  the  development  of  the  psycho- 
analytic movement  in  the  field  of  psychiatry,  and  its  value  in 
emphasizing  the  faults  of  the  doctrines  of  "mental  states,"  and 
of  abstract  "behaviorism"  in  psychology.  The  unprejudiced 
psychologist  cannot  fail  to  give  due  credit  to  the  Freudian 
movement  in  psychiatry  for  enlightening  psychology  concerning 
the  importance  of  social  factors  in  human  behavior. 

We  may  sum  up  the  advantages  which 'psychology  derives 
from  the  consideration  of  varying  types  of  human  activity  by 
pointing  out  that  in  consequence,  psychology  is  tending  toward 
a  more  adequate  conception  of  its  subject  matter,  the  conception 
namely,  that  it  has  as  its  proper  data  conscious  behavior,  and 
not  consciousness  or  behavior.  This  conception  of  conscious 
behavior,  which  is  an  immediate  derivative  from  exact  data, 

1Cf.  Prince,  The  Unconscious,  1914, 

158 


J.  R.  Kantor  159 


brings  psychology  into  direct  contact  with  actually  existing  and 
transpiring  phenomena.  Further,  the  development  of  this  idea 
will  lay  some  of  the  haunting  spirits  of  psychology,  the  most 
prominent  of  which  are  the  problems  of  consciousness  and  its 
variant  the  sub-conscious,  and  the  mind-body  problem.  And 
finally,  because  psychology  is  thus  providing  for  itself  a  more 
concrete,  scientific  foundation,  it  will  be  extremely  useful  in 
dealing  with  those  abnormal  behaviors  which  mark  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  psychiatrist. 

A  conscious  behavior  is  a  complex  act  of  a  conscious  being, 
and  serves  always  as  a  specific  adjustment  to  some  object  or 
condition.  These  objects  may  be  physical  things,  other  con- 
scious beings,  or  persons,  social  objects,  such  as  customs  and 
opinions,  or  some  sensorially,  intangible  object  such  as  a  social 
or  individual  ideal.  The  conditions  mentioned  are  also  physical, 
social  or  ideal,  and  indicate  the  complexity  of  human  adjust- 
ment. When  psychology  studies  the  complex  adjustments  of 
human  beings  it  need  not  deny  or  neglect  any  facts  of  conscious 
behavior,  and  can  take  account  of  its  development  toward  higher 
types  of  activity.  Human  actions  need  not  be  reduced  to  the 
simple  movements  of  the  lower  animals,  since  provision  is  made 
by  this  attitude  for  the  existence  of  moral,  social,  aesthetic  and 
other  kinds  of  behavior.  These  actions  are  not  reduced  to 
responses  which  can  be  correlated  with  extremely  simple  stimuli 
as  causes.  The  failure  to  regard  human  behavior  as  complex 
actions  with  specific  ends  has  not  resulted  in  an  increased 
knowledge  concerning  them.  And  when  behaviors  varied  so 
far  from  the  standard  as  to  come  under  the  notice  of  the  psy- 
chiatrist, he  could  not  deal  with  them,  since  they  were  neither 
exclusively  simple,  brain  lesions,  nor  disturbances  of  the  mind. 

The  dynamic  description  of  conscious  behavior  may  be 
further  amplified  by  the  ennumeration  of  several,  peculiar 
characteristics,  which  serve  to  distinguish  it  definitely  from  other 
types  of  action.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  variability  of 
response,  which  signifies  persistence  in  bringing  about  a  specific 
change  in  relation  between  the  individual  and  the  surrounding 
conditions.  There  seems  to  be  a  purpose  in  the  conduct. 
Another  characteristic  of  the  behavior  is  that  it  is  modifiable; 
the  organism  adapts  itself  to  conditions  with  reference  to  past 
actions,  which  past  actions  and  their  relation  to  present  situations 
may  be  unknown  to  the  organism.  The  modification  of  behavior 
in  its  developed  form  in  the  human  species  enables  the  individual 


160  Conscious  Behavior  and  the  Abnormal 

to  act  upon  the  basis  of  information.  In  the  latter  case  there  is 
implied  a  discriminative  use  of  memory,  which  is  the  basis  for 
all  intelligent  behavior.  And  finally  there  are  the  characteristics 
of  inhibition  and  delay  which  make  for  a  still  higher  development 
of  action.  We  have  here  the  beginnings  of  voluntary  and  other 
behaviors  requiring  highly  elaborate,  problem-solving  functions. 
These  characteristics  refer  primarily  to  the  more  specific  mental 
features  of  conscious  behavior,  and  are  not  in  any  sense  exclusive 
functions  of  brain  processes. 

The  analytic  description  of  conscious  behavior  reveals  a 
complex  series  of  component  functions,  each  member  of  which 
contributes  to  the  total  effect  of  the  adaptive  action.  The 
series  of  functions  includes  mental,  behavioristic,  and  environ- 
mental factors,  all  of  which  are  organically  related,  and  form  a 
unitary  function  of  response.  These  factors  are  invariably  all 
present,  but  not  in  the  same  degree.  In  one  case  there  may  be  a 
predominance  of  one  or  more  factors,  which  may  be  recessive  in 
other  behavior.  Every  conscious  behavior  has  as  factors  in  its 
mental  component  three  groups  of  sub-factors.  These  may  be 
named  the  cognitive,  affective,  and  conative  functions.  The 
cognitive  function  in  its  simplest  form  may  be  described  as  a 
vague  appreciation  of  the  presence  of  an  exciting  object.  In 
more  developed  forms  the  cognitive  function  is  represented  by 
meanings  which  are  the  prominent  cores  of  all  discriminative 
responses.  These  meanings  are  important  factors  in  volitions, 
perceptions,  instincts,  emotions,  memories,  and  thoughts.  The 
cognitive  functions  determine  to  a  larger  measure  than  any  other 
factor  the  kind  of  response  that  the  stimulus-object  will  elicit. 

The  conative  functions  may  be  characterized  as  the  ex- 
citatory phases  of  conscious  behavior;  they  are  the  elements 
which  make  for  the  original  spontaneity  of  the  individual,  the 
sensitivity  of  the  individual  to  external  influences.  The  differ- 
ence in  an  organism  between  the  spontaneity  attributable  to 
mere  living  function,  and  the  added  spontaneity  which  the  cona- 
tive function  occasions,  must  be  insisted  upon.  The  conative 
process  always  implies  a  discriminative  reaction.  The  point  is, 
that  conative  response  is  much  farther  removed  from  explanation 
on  the  physico-chemical  basis,  than  are  mere  physiological  pro- 
cesses. The  conative  functions  in  their  integrated  forms  con- 
stitute the  impulse  type  of  behavior,  which  contrasts  with  the 
reflective  type.  In  a  general  way  we  might  say  that  the  conative 
factor  initiates  a  response,  while  the  cognitive  function  deter- 


J.  R.  Kantor  161 


mines  what  the  response  shall  be  with  reference  to  the  particular 
stimulus-object  and  its  setting.  In  a  way  the  conative  function 
is  more  primitive  than  the  cognitive  function,  since  the  former 
is  most  prominent  when  the  cognitive  function  is  least  so.  The 
affective  functions  determine  the  degree  of  readiness  and  capacity 
to  respond  to  stimuli,  and  condition  the  continuance  or  discon- 
tinuance of  the  responsive  act,  when  once  it  is  initiated.  The 
affective  functions  as  present  in  a  given  situation,  are  also 
symptoms  of  the  success  or  lack  of  success  of  a  particular  behavior 
to  produce  a  desirable  adjustment. 

The  specific,  behavioristic  factors  are  the  three  predomi- 
nately physiological  functions,  the  muscular,  the  glandular 
and  the  organic.  Without  these  there  can  be  no  conscious  be- 
havior. These  functions  may  be  considered  as  roughly  corre- 
lated with  the  conscious  functions.  For  example,  the  glandular 
functions  are  prominent  in  behaviors  which  are  predominantly 
affective  processes,  wrhile  the  muscular  actions  are  most  pro- 
minent in  behaviors  stressing  the  conative  processes.  The  third 
member  in  the  series  of  component  functions  comprises  the 
environmental  conditions,  which  limit  and  control  behavior  by 
way  of  furnishing  occasion  for  adjustment.  The  importance 
of  this  member  of  the  series  cannot  be  overestimated,  since  no 
act  can  go  on  in  vacua,  and  what  an  act  is  to  be,  must  be  in  large 
part  conditioned  by  surrounding  circumstances.  We  must 
look  upon  all  complex  behaviors  as  instinctive  tendencies  to 
action,  which  are  modified  by  interaction  with  the  surroundings. 
The  integration  of  simple  response-behaviors  in  the  human  indi- 
vidual is  very  strictly  regulated  by  natural,  social,  and  cultural, 
environing  conditions. 

Any  specific,  conscious  behavior  is  represented  by  varying 
components  of  the  three  factors  just  discussed.  The  viewpoint 
is  implied  here  that  no  human  adjustment  is  unconscious.2 
This  attitude  supports  itself  upon  the  fact  that  every  conscious 
behavior  is  the  act  of  an  organized,  complex  individual.  Con- 
scious behavior  of  the  instinctive,  habitual  sort  will  have  a  pre- 
dominance of  behavioristic  factors,  and  will  be  more  conditioned 
by  external  circumstances.  The  voluntary  actions  and  thought 
functions  are  built  upon  a  plan  which  features  the  conscious 
factors,  and  are  more  independent  of  immediately  surrounding 
conditions.  This  relative  independence  makes  for  a  greater 
mobility  and  efficiency  in  adjustments,  and  is  adapted  to  fit  the 

-Thut  is.  in  the  .sense  of  bring  purely  physiological. 


162  Conscious  Behavior  and  the  Abnormal 

individual  not  only  to  meet  the  needs  of  some  specific  situation, 
but  also  to  increase  the  possibilities  of  the  situation.  The  voli- 
tional-thought behaviors  function  only  under  conditions  rich  in 
possibilities  for  varied  responses.  We  must  note  in  this  con- 
nection that  a  conscious  behavior  is  always  an  adjustmental  ax?t : 
its  independence  is  extremely  relative  to  a  situation  which  is 
constantly  progressing  in  complexity.  The  most  elaborate 
thought  functions  are  integrations  of  the  results  of  trial  and  error 
adjustments  to  complicated,  environmental  problems. 

The  full  significance  of  the  formulae  which  represent  con- 
scious behavior  cannot  be  appreciated  unless  we  consider  that 
every  behavior  is  an  action  of  a  specific,  conscious  being,  and  the 
act  is  therefore  conditioned  by  all  that  the  individual  is,  and  can 
do.  This  fact  instructs  us  concerning  the  character  of  the  be- 
havior components.  We  learn  that  muscular  and  glandular, 
adjustment-processes  are  of  a  certain  order  and  strength,  effec- 
tive in  certain  situations,  and  not  in  others.  The  factors  of  use 
and  disuse  are  important  here.  On  the  side  of  the  more  definite 
mental  components,  the  formulae  of  behavior  will  account  for  a 
great  number  of  influences  which  determine  specific  actions. 
Included  here  are  various  products  of  experience,  functional 
under  the  names  of  ideals,  sentiments,  interests,  beliefs  and 
convictions.  These  elements  are  permanent  modifications  pro- 
duced upon  individuals  by  interaction  with  their  surroundings, 
both  physical  and  social,  and  are  complementary  variations  to 
the  specific  bodily  changes  composing  integral  parts  of  conscious 
behavior.  It  must  be  insisted  that  these  individual  and  social 
complexes,  which  in  everyday  thought  have  come  to  mean 
collectively  personality  or  character,  are  parts  of  acts;  they  are 
specific  components  of  responses  to  human,  environmental  con- 
ditions. Consideration  of  all  the  component  factors  in  any  con- 
scious behavior  results  in  studying  it  in  all  cases  as  a  concrete, 
empirical  happening,  which  may  well  form  the  material  for  scien- 
tific interpretation.  The  consideration  of  the  being  who  per- 
forms the  behavior  brings  to  light  immediately  the  more  per- 
manent elements  of  such  behavior.  In  studying  the  acting 
individual  we  account  for  the  total  series  of  capacities  and 
tendencies  of  action,  actually  centered  in  the  individual,  modi- 
fied by  past  action,  and  which  at  any  moment  is  responsible  for 
the  specific  nature  of  a  present  action.  It  is  only  by  considering 
the  individual  that  any  information  is  available  concerning  the 
motives  and  intentions,  which  are  in  part  the  driving  forces  of 


J.  R.  Kantor  103 


all  complex,  human  behavior.  In  most  complex  actions  we  must 
depend  upon  information  gleaned  from  these  permanently  ex- 
isting, action  possibilities  for  the  meaning  of  behavior,  and  any 
capacity  for  the  prediction  of  behavior  is  entirely  dependent 
upon  such  information.  The  meanness,  generosity,  sufficiency 
and  other  qualities  of  any  act  are  very  specific  functions  of  the 
complex  systems  of  inherited  and  acquired  action-tendencies, 
which  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  individual. 

The  value  of  the  theory  of  conscious  behavior  as  discussed, 
is  indicated  by  the  application  of  the  formulae  in  interpreting 
the  serious  modifications  of  human  behavior.  Abnormal  be- 
havior may  be  accounted  for  by  the  degree  of  disorganization 
of  the  component  factors  in  the  action.  The  point  is,  that  what 
we  ordinarily  call  an  abnormal  behavior  may  be  looked  upon  as 
an  act,  the  formula  of  which  differs  markedly  from  the  formula 
representing  that  individual's  normal  or  usual  behavior.  This 
fact  is  wrell  illustrated  by  the  paretics,  who  owing  to  some  change 
in  psycho-physical  organization,  will  perform  acts  which  are 
uninfluenced  by  their  usual  sentiments  and  convictions.  This 
is  especially  noticeable  in  some  cases  in  an  indulgence  of  the 
sexual  appetite  in  what  under  ordinary  circumstances,  is  an 
entirely  repugnant  manner.  In  dementia  praecox  cases  we  find 
individuals,  who  because  of  some  disturbing  experience,  now  too- 
frequently  possible  in  our  civil  conditions,  are  so  disorganized  as 
to  lose  all  acts  which  require  the  guidance  of  certain  interests  and 
acquired  action-habits.  The  so-called  moral  delinquents  per- 
form actions  which  seem  controlled  almost  entirely  by  instinctive 
action-tendencies.  There  seems  to  be  a  lack  of  sentiment  in  the 
individual,  such  as  ordinarily  arises  from  contact  with  other 
persons,  and  a  lack  of  realization  of  the  consequences  of  past  acts. 
The  disorganizations  found  in  abnormal  behavior  involve  unit 
functions  or  series  of  component  functions,  and  indicate  corres- 
ponding failures  of  adaptation  to  surrounding  conditions.  As 
the  histories  of  war  shock  victims  are  made  available  for  study, 
we  find  every  possible  form  of  disorganization  of  action  com- 
ponents. In  a  practical  way  we  can  locate  the  sources  of  dis- 
organization in  either  the  mental  or  the  behavioristic  components 
of  conscious  behavior,  although  it  must  be  remembered  that 
these  distinctions  are  purely  logical  or  verbal.  Following  this 
same,  practical  consideration  we  may  look  upon  some  dis- 
turbances of  behavior  as  involving  a  disorganization  of  the 
mental  and  behavioristic  components  together  from  the  environ- 


164  Conscious  Behavior  and  the  Abnormal 

mental  factor.  This  is  the  condition  in  most  genuine  cases  of 
paranoia.  These  types  of  cases  show  psycho-physical  reactions, 
which  considered  by  themselves,  would  be  normal,  but  being 
entirely  out  of  harmony  with  their  actual  setting,  are  thus 
abnormal. 

A  thoroughgoing,  organic  viewpoint  concerning  the  mental 
functions  such  as  is  here  outlined,  will  throw  considerable  light 
upon  some  vexing  problems  of  psychology.  The  concepts  of 
consciousness  and  the  sub-conscious  will  take  on  more  accurate 
and  scientific  meaning,  and  the  traditional  mind-body  problem 
will  no  longer  stand  as  a  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  psychology 
toward  scientific  stability. 

The  organic  viewpoint  of  conscious  behavior  looks  upon 
consciousness,  not  as  an  independent  entity  or  stuff  paralleling 
physical  matter,  but  as  a  definite,  verifiable  factor  of  human 
behavior,  which  occasions  definite  qualities  of  action  not  found 
in  other  types  of  behavior.  The  place  of  consciousness  in 
human  activity  is  a  positive  fact  of  observation,  to  which  psy- 
chology must  give  adequate  determination,  just  as  facts  of  energy 
are  evaluated  in  physics,  and  living  functions  in  biology.  The 
organic  viewpoint  insists  upon  the  description  of  human  action 
just  as  it  occurs,  in  terms  of  its  component  functions,  and  its 
relation  to  other  observable,  related  facts. 

The  concept  of  the  subconscious  becomes  entirely  renovated 
and  clarified.  Since  there  is  no  such  entity  as  consciousness,  natur- 
ally enough  there  can  be  no  such  entity  as  the  subconscious. 
Scientific  experience  indicates  that  there  are  only  subconscious 
activities,  behaviors  in  whicht  he  complex,  awareness  components 
are  only  slightly  in  evidence.  Subconscious  behavior  is  pri- 
marily behavioristic  and  environmental,  and  is  entirely  lacking 
in  awareness  of  self.  According  to  this  view  subconscious 
behaviors  are  merely  those  actions  which  vary  from  other  be- 
haviors, because  of  a  marked  inclination  toward  habitual  or 
other  preestablished,  action  systems,  which  are  controlled  by 
surrounding  conditions.  This  fact  removes  most  of  the  mystery 
attached  to  this  type  of  behavior,  since  it  is  evident  that  these 
more  or  less  automatized  acts  constitute  by  far  the  greatest  part 
of  conscious  phenomena,  and  represent  important  phases  of 
memory,  thought  and  voluntary  action. 

The  advancement  of  psychology  as  a  definite  science  allows 
no  room  for  a  mind-body  problem,  since  minds  and  bodies  are 
not  observable  phenomena  for  the  scientist.  The  psychologist 


J.  R.  Kantor  165 


who  describes  any  observation  of  actual,  conscious  phenomena 
cannot  describe  anything  but  a  conscious  behavior,  which  is  the 
action  of  a  conscious  being.  The  current  discussions  concerning 
parallelism  and  interaction  are  entirely  extraneous  to  scientific 
observation  and  description.  The  mind-body  problem  is  an 
unwelcome  heritage  from  the  time  when  psychology  was  still  a 
branch  of  metaphysics,  and  has  not  only  been  a  detriment  to 
psychology  proper,  but  has  added  greatly  to  the  inadequacy  of 
psychology  as  an  aid  in  the  solution  of  the  practical  problems  of 
psychiatry.  The  complete  rejection  from  psychology  of  the 
mind-body  disjunction  would  eliminate  from  the  science  the 
extreme,  mentalistic  and  behavioristic  viewpoints,  with  their 
consequent  confusion  of  psychological  facts. 

The  separation  theory  in  psychology  may  be  held  responsi- 
ble for  the  present  unsatisfactory  condition  of  psychiatry,  in  so 
far  as  that  discipline  is  dependent  upon  psychology  as  a  founda- 
tion. A  separation  doctrine  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  psychogenic- 
physiologic  controversy,  which  parallels  the  retarded  develop- 
ment of  the  successful  handling  of  failures  of  human  adjustment. 
The  controversy  concerning  the  psychogenic  and  physiological 
basis  for  mental  diseases,  which  has  beclouded  the  work  of  the 
psychiatrist,  may  be  traced  to  a  faulty  conception  of  the  nature 
of  human  organization  and  behavior.  The  very  name  mental 
disease  is  a  symptom  of  the  inaccuracy  of  the  thinking  which 
pervades  psychological  and  psychiatrical  circles.  It  is  extremely 
gratifying  to  see  how  far  the  psychiatrist  has  been  driven  through 
his  forensic  interest  to  a  realization  that  after  all  he  is  dealing 
with  behavior  and  not  with  mental  defects.  The  obstinate 
facts  of  moral  adjustment  with  lack  of  intellectual  defect  have 
also  aided  in  correcting  the  attitude  of  the  psychiatrist.  The 
carefully  observed  facts  of  hysteria  and  neurasthenia  have  al- 
ways pointed  to  an  interpretation  of  those  conditions  as  faulty, 
conscious  behavior.  The  full  appreciation  of  the  conscious  - 
behavior  attitude  will  give  the  psychic  and  physiological  func- 
tions their  proper,  respective  places  in  the  total  adjustment. 

The  sharp  antithesis  which  has  recently  been  developed  by 
the  psychopathologists,  who  stress  the  purely  mental  factors  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  strict  behaviorists,  who  stress  automatic 
and  reflex  means  of  response  on  the  other,  marks  a  development 
of  thought  which  aims  to  investigate  the  deeply,  lying  facts  of 
human  behavior.  Since  the  elaboration  of  the  ideas  of  Kraeplin, 
the  so-called,  mental  diseases  must  be  looked  upon  as  defects  of 


160  Conscious  Behavior  and  the  Abnormal 

personalities.  Now  it  seems  fairly  clear  that  if  we  are  to  have 
an  adequate  notion  of  the  actions  of  such  personalities,  we  must 
not  lose  sight  of  any  of  the  essential  factors  in  those  actions.  We 
must  inevitably  fail  to  make  the  most  of  our  investigations  when 
we  make  the  action  consist  of  only  one  aspect  of  the  whole.  To 
stress  the  mental  side  means  to  arrive  at  a  bizarre  doctrine 
of  unattached,  mental  states,  and  their  unconscious  consciousness 
and  other  anomalous  and  inexperiential  conditions,  which 
characterize  the  Freudian  literature.  In  spite  of  the  merit  of  the 
Freudian  viewpoint,  which  has  thrown  much  light  upon  the 
facts  of  experience,  the  movement  as  a  psychological  develop- 
ment is  vitiated  by  the  failure  to  include  in  its  program  the 
complete  individual.  This  failure  has  resulted  in  the  crudities 
of  the  unreal,  sexual  material,  and  in  the  metaphysical  libido, 
both  of  which  have  neither  added  to  the  understanding  of  psy- 
chiatrical problems,  nor  their  solution.  The  Adlerian  secession 
from  Freud's  position  indicates  at  least  a  symptom  within  the 
Freudian  movement,  of  the  need  for  an  inclusion  of  the  bodily 
aspects  of  the  individuals  undergoing  study. 

The  insistence  upon  an  exclusive,  physiological  basis  for  the 
mental  diseases  is  just  as  far  from  understanding  the  conditions 
of  persons  and  their  action,  as  the  mentalistic  attitude.  Be- 
sides, it  misses  the  suggestive  facts  concerning  the  place  of  past 
experience  of  an  individualistic  and  social  sort,  as  influence  of 
human  behavior.  The  only  reason  that  these  partial  attitudes 
can  exist  at  all,  and  not  become  glaring  in  their  inadequacy,  is 
because  in  certain,  practical  situations  it  does  not  matter  whether 
there  is  an  adequate  basis  for  the  treatment  or  not.  This  is  not 
at  all  surprising,  since  even  in  calculation  one  may  possibly 
arrive  at  a  correct  total,  providing  at  least  two  errors  are  made. 
For  its  advancement  as  a  science,  however,  psychiatry  must, 
because  of  its  most  pressing  problems,  base  itself  upon  an  accurate, 
psychology.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  history 
of  psychiatry  is  very  closely  bound  up  with  changing  psychologi- 
cal conceptions.  Thus,  in  Germany,  Ziehen  sought  to  make  his 
Herbartian  attitude  stand  out  prominently  against  the  Wund- 
tian  apperception  psychology.  This  polemical  procedure  did 
not  have  an  entirely  salubrious  effect  upon  Ziehen's  conception 
of  mental  disease.  Kraeplin  found  especially  objectionable 
Ziehen's  paranoia  group,  because  it  contained  entirely  different, 
chronic  conditions,  and  acute  psychoses,  through  the  influences 
of  being  disorders  of  the  "intellect."3  The  influence  of  the 

s  Adolf  Meyer,  in  Church  and  Peterson,  Nerv.  and  Ment.  Diseases,  1909,  p.  674. 


J.  R.  Kantor  167 


Wundtian  psychology  upon  Kraeplin's  psychiatry  is  marked, 
although  Kraeplin  has  seriously  raised  the  issue  between  clinical 
and  psychological  psychiatry.  Kraeplin  was  led  to  raise  this 
issue  by  his  recognition  of  the  inadequacy  of  certain  types  of 
psychological  view-point.  The  difficulties  of  his  own  classifica- 
tion and  description  arose  in  large  part  from  his  failure  to  realize 
that  instead  of  abandoning  psychology  it  was  necessary  to  adopt 
a  satisfactory,  psychological  attitude. 

We  must  insist  that  it  is  not  only  psychiatrical  classification 
which  calls  for  an  adequate,  psychological  conception  as  a 
foundation,  but  indeed  all  phases  of  psychiatry.  The  lack  of 
such  a  foundation  may  be  considered  the  source  of  the  difficul- 
ties which  calls  for  an  adequate,  psychological  conception  as  a 
foundation,  but  indeed  all  phases  of  psychiatry.  The  lack  of 
such  a  foundation  may  be  considered  the  source  of  the  difficulties 
experienced  in  physiological  circles  with  Wernicke's  localization 
theories.  Such  controversies  as  existed  between  the  rival  schools 
of  Nancy  and  Salpetriere  in  the  psychical  group,  may  be  traced 
to  the  same  source,  w^hile  the  recent  success  of  the  psycho- 
analytic movement  may  be  taken  to  be  a  symptom  of  the  ex- 
treme inadequacy  of  a  psychology  of  "mental  states"  or  of 
abstract  "  behavior.  "4  A  study  of  the  present  status  of  psychia- 
trical principles  and  procedure  creates  the  presumption  that  a 
helpful  psychiatry  would  be  one  which  considers  human  behavior 
as  a  complex  action  involving  a  series  of  component  functions. 

We  might  point  out  in  conclusion  the  fact  that  precisely 
because  the  study  of  conscious  behavior  is  a  matter  of  concrete, 
existing  phenomena,  it  can  break  across  the  boundaries  of  the 
theoretical  and  the  practical.  We  find  that  psychology,  which 
may  be  looked  upon  as  the  more  theoretical  or  "pure"  science, 
makes  progress  on  the  basis  of  data  derived  from  the  abnormal 
field.  On  the  other  hand,  because  psychology  as  a  more  theo- 
retical science  is  not  driven  by  the  urge  of  immediate  accom- 
plishment, it  can  bring  into  its  domain  such  order  and  interpre- 
tation of  fact  as  to  be  able  materially  to  aid  psychiatry  to  deal 
adequately  with  its  problems  of  human  adjustment. 

4Cf .  Watson,  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  etc,  xiii,  p.  589,  Jelliffe,  ibid,  xiv,  p.  267. 


THE    INCREASING    IMPORTANCE    OF   THE 
BIOLOGICAL  VIEWPOINT  IN  PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 
AND  PSYCHIATRY 

BY    MEYER    SOLOMON,    M.    D.,    CHICAGO 

THE  work  of  Darwin  and  the  tremendous  influx  of  bio- 
logical knowledge  that  came  thereafter,  had  a  most 
wholesome  and  invigorating  influence  upon  scientific 
thought  not  only  in  biology  proper  but  in  all  allied 
fields  of  scientific  endeavor.  Its  welcoming  breeze  blew  sooth- 
ingly and  with  stimulating  effect  upon  the  troubled  and  sweating 
brows  of  innumerable  toilers  in  the  fields  of  science,  relieving 
their  flagging  energies  and  failing  hopes  and  goading  them  on  to 
better  and  to  greater  things.  Every  sailor  in  the  ship  of  science 
rode  the  waves  with  more  joyous  heart  and  more  surging  spirit. 
The  land  of  hope  and  dreams  and  work  and  light  lay  beyond 
them,  in  their  new  visions.  They  both  basked  and  worked  in  the 
reflected  sunlight  derived  from  the  newer  trends  in  biological 
thinking. 

Psychology,  too,  rose  with  the  tide.  Psychology,  too,  rode 
the  crest  of  the  scientific  wave.  And  now,  more  than  ever  before, 
is  psychology  under  the  influence  of  biology.  The  whole  be- 
havioristic  movement  and  the  genetic  viewpoint  are  definite 
evidences  of  this.  The  study  of  behavior  is  now  the  slogan  or 
battle-cry  of  so  many  fighters  in  this  camp.  Watson,  Yerkes, 
Kirkpatrick,  Parmelee,  Thorndike,  McDougall,  Shand,  and 
many  others  are  reaching  for  the  same  prize.  From  Spencer  to 
James,  Baldwin  and  G.  Stanley  Hall  and  his  followers  we  see 
the  same  efforts,  from  somewhat  different  angles. 

Psychology  has,  indeed,  taken  on  a  new  lease  of  life,  and  its 
future  seems  today  to  be  brighter  than  ever  before  in  its  past 
life-history. 

This  means  that  it  is  now  generally  recognized  that  psychol- 
ogy is  a  branch  not  of  philosophy  but  of  biology.  This  means, 
furthermore,  that  mere  description  has  given  way  to  efforts  at 
more  profound  analysis  and  unearthing  of  the  ultimate  genesis. 

The  study  of  abnormal  mental  life  in  human  beings,  a  study 

168 


Meyer  Solomon  169 


which  conies  under  the  rubrics  of  psychopathology  and  psychia- 
try, had,  until  comparatively  recently,  been  concerned  to  a  great 
extent  with  the  much  needed  work  of  description  and  classifica- 
tion. Although  this  work  is  by  no  means  completed  even  at  this 
time,  still,  it  is  cause  for  congratulation  that  here,  too,  the  analy- 
tic and  genetic  viewpoint,  the  biological  and  evolutionary  ap- 
proach, has  been  making  itself  felt  more  and  more. 

The  French  school,  with  Charcot  and  those  who  came  after 
him,  particularly  Janet,  have  done  noble  and  painstaking  plow- 
ing of  the  untilled  soil  in  psychopathology.  The  German  stu- 
dents, for  the  most  part,  with  Kraepelin  and  his  school  and  many 
others  independently,  have  used  the  rake  with  good  effect  in 
psychiatry. 

Added  to  their  work,  we  have  the  present  era,  so  to  speak, 
with  its  very  intensive  analytic  and  genetic  tendencies.  Janet 
and  others  labored  assiduously  in  this  direction.  Freud,  Jung, 
Adler,  Bleuler  have  endeavored  to  dig  more  and  more  deeply  into 
the  foundations  of  things. 

In  the  United  States  and  Canada,  Adolf  Meyer,  Boris  Sidis, 
Morton  Prince,  and  others  (White,  Jelliffe,  etc.),  have 
contributed  in  varying  degrees,  from  somewhat  different  angles, 
to  the  solution  of  the  problems  at  hand. 

Different  schools  have  arisen,  with  apparently  widely  differ- 
ing attitudes. 

In  the  meantime  considerable  progress  has  been  going  on  in 
the  study  of  the  mentally  defective  and  the  delinquent,  with  the 
names  of  Binet  and  Simon,  Goddard,  Healy  and  many  others  to 
the  fore. 

The  studies  of  the  bodily  effects,  or,  as  William  James  would 
say,  the  bodily  accompaniments  or  manifestations  or  evidences 
of  the  emotions,  of  the  ductless  glands,  and  of  the  involuntary 
nervous  system  have  given  us  new  avenues  of  attack,  new  vistas. 

The  whole  field  has  widened,  so  that  all  sorts  of  phenomena, 
such  as  the  so-called  psychopathological  acts  of  everyday  life, 
dreams,  myths,  legends,  fairy  tales,  child  study,  animal  be- 
havior, the  conditioned  reflex,  and  allied  questions  have  added 
untold  interest  to  psychopathology  and  psychiatry. 

The  study  of  behavior  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word  has 
definitely  become  the  work  of  the  day. 

The  researches  of  Pawlow  and  his  followers  in  physiology, 
of  Cannon,  of  Crile,  of  Sherrington,  of  Bechterew,  of  Loeb,  and 


170     The  Increasing  Importance  of  the  Biological  Viewpoint 

of  Jennings,  have  been  made  use  of  by  psychopathologists, 
psychiatrists,  and  psychologists. 

The  study  of  behavior,  then,  in  its  human  aspects,  has  been 
made  the  centre  of  the  stage.  And  since  human  behavior  is  but 
a  part  of  behavior  or  life  in  general,  what  more  natural  than  to 
expect  that  biology  should  come  to  our  rescue  and  be  our  de- 
liverer? 

Adolf  Meyer  has  assumed  a  broad  biological  viewpoint  in 
psychiatry.  Freud,  Jung,  and  also  Adler,  and  their  followers, 
have,  for  the  most  part,  confined  themselves  to  the  present  life 
history  of  their  patients  in  their  interpretative  efforts,  although 
they  have  perforce  been  compelled  slowly  to  resort  to  broader 
biological,  evolutionary  views. 

In  this  respect  we  can  expect  great  aid  from  the  out-and-out 
biologists  and  psychologists. 

Prince  and  more  particularly  Sidis  have  been  helped  consider- 
ably in  their  work  by  the  adoption  of  a  truly  biological  attitude. 

Claparede1  has  made  a  plea  for  the  biological  orientation 
and  interpretation  in  psychopathology  and  has  indicated  its 
value. 

Lydiard  H.  Horton2  has  attempted  to  explain  dreams  from 
this  viewpoint. 

And,  in  general,  one  may  say  that  one  finds  evidences  of  a 
more  definite  and  clearer  biological  and  evolutionary  viewpoint 
on  every  hand. 

There  is  a  quickening  interest  in  all  the  social  sciences,  and 
I  doubt  not  but  that  one  of  the.  results  of  the  terrible  war  now 
raging  all  over  Europe  will  be  an  even  greater  impetus  in  this 
same  direction. 

Man  is  being  driven  to  have  a  greater  interest  in  the  con- 
servation of  human  physical  and  mental  health  and  human  life, 
and  the  importance  of  the  social  sciences  will  be  projected  into 
the  limelight  more  and  more.  It  is  but  to  be  expected  that 
progress  in  this  field  will  go  forward  with  great  bounds. 

It  is  my  hope  that  before  long  there  will  be  a  harmonization 
or  synthesis  or  unification  or  integration  of  the  apparently  split- 
off  and  ramifying  trends  of  the  so-called  schools  in  psycho- 
pathology  and  psychiatry,  and  that  then  better  agreement  and 

1.  The  Value  of  Biological  Interpretation  for  Abnormal  Psychology,  Journal  of  Abnormal 
Psychology,  June,  1906. 

2.  On  the  Irrelevancy  of  Dreams,  in  the  Light  of  the  Trial-and-error  Theory  of  Dreaming, 
Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  August-September,  1916.     Also  the  Apparent  Inversion  of 
Time  in  Dreams,  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  April-May,  1916. 


Meyer  Solomon  171 


working  together  and  understanding  will  be  the  end-result. 
This  can  but  lead  to  more  rapid  strides  forward  in  the  upward 
drive  to  grasp  and  solve  the  numerous  problems  which  beset  us 
in  the  complex  field  of  abnormal  human  behavior. 

Evidences  of  this  unification  are,  to  my  vision,  at  any  rate, 
already  present.  Let  us  hope  that  in  the  very  near  future  the 
bonds  of  union  between  the  divergent  trends  now  existing  will 
be  drawn  tighter  and  tighter,  and  harmony  and  progress  will 
reign  supreme. 

The  biological  viewpoint,  with  its  pregnant  possibilities, 
has  not  yet  scratched  the  surface  of  psychopathology  and  psychi- 
atry. The  fruits  of  sowing  our  seed  in  its  field  will  come  to  us 
in  ever-increasing  measure  as  the  years  roll  on. 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  EMOTIONS  FROM  FACIAL 

EXPRESSIONS 

BY   HERBERT    SIDNEY   LANGFELD 

HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 

MY  interest  in  the  question  of  the  judgment  of  emotions 
from  facial  expressions,  and  of  the  validity  of  first 
impressions  led  me  to  arrange  an  experiment  in 
the  Harvard  Psychological  laboratory  whereby  the 
ability  to  read  emotional  expressions  could  be  tested.     Among 
other  data,   certain   facts  concerning    the  nature  of  emotions, 
their  relation  to  each  other,  and  the  various  forms  and  degrees 
of  difficulty  of  interpretation  were  obtained,  and  have  seemed  of 
sufficient  general  interest  to  be  described  here. 

The  ideal  method  would  have  been  to  judge  actual  facial 
expressions  under  emotional  strain,  but  that  was  obviously  im- 
possible in  the  laboratory.  A  cinematograph,  would  have  been 
almost  as  good  and  more  practical,  but  not  having  such  an  in- 
strument, I  had  to  resort  to  pictures.  From  Rudolph's  "Der 
Ausdruck  des  Menschen,"  which  contains  680  pictures,  I 
selected  105  of  the  best.  These  pictures  were  sketched  from 
photographs  of  a  skillful  actor  who  posed  for  that  purpose. 

The  pictures  were  shown  to  two  subjects  at  a  time,  there 
being  in  all  four  men  and  two  women.  They  were  asked  to  write 
down  their  interpretations  of  the  emotions  portrayed.  About 
thirty  judgments  were  made  at  one  time.  After  the  entire  num- 
ber had  been  gone  through,  the  pictures  were  shown  a  second 
time,  but  not  in  the  same  order.  The  subjects  were  again  asked 
to  write  down  their  judgments.  This  was  to  discover  the  degree 
of  constancy.  They  were  then  told  the  judgments  of  all  of  the 
subjects,  and  also  the  book  titles  of  the  pictures.  This  was  to 
discover  if  they  would  recognize  their  own  judgments,  and  also 
if  they  would  select  the  book  title.  They  were  then  told  the 
book  title,  and  asked  if  they  preferred  that  title  to  the  judgment 
they  had  made.  In  this  way  the  accuracy  of  portrayal  by  the 
artist  could  be  ascertained.  It  may  be  stated  here  that  the 
subjects  were  fairly  consistent,  that  they  did  not  very  frequently 

172 


Herbert  Sidney  Langfield 


173 


recognize  their  own  judgments,   and  that  there  were  typical 
differences  in  their  ability  to  judge  such  expressions.     I  have 
only  taken  those  pictures  for  further  discussion  whose  book  title 
1  2 


3  4 

was  accepted  by  at  least  three  of  the  subjects.  It  is  fair  to 
assume  that  this  50  per  cent  acceptance  indicates  a  successful 
portrayal  by  the  artist.  Of  the  other  pictures,  upon  whose  title 


174       The  Judgment  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

only  two  or  less  agreed  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  how  much  the 
judgments  were  influenced  by  the  deficiencies  of  the  artist. 

Although  I  have  spoken  of  the  expressions  as  emotions,  the 
ones  to  be  analyzed  will  include  what  generally  are  termed 
"moods"  and  "sentiments."  It  is  often  very  difficult  to  make 
a  distinction  between  these  latter  and  emotions,  as  the  one  passes 
readily  over  into  the  other.  Also  we  are  concerned  only  with 
their  outward  expression  and  not  with  their  significance  and 
source. 

In  most  instances  complex  emotions,  usually  with  one 
dominant  emotion,  have  been  portrayed,  and  it  will  be  es- 
pecially interesting  to  note  how  well  this  complex  expression  has 
been  analysed.  Let  us  begin  with  the  "amazement"  group. 
In  a  picture  entitled  "amazement,  doubtful,"  all  the  subjects 
noted  surprise,  and  several  interpreted  the  "doubtful"  by 
"skeptical."  If  the  amazement  is  very  strong,  we  have  the 
expression  of  fear.  Five  of  the  subjects  called  strong  amaze- 
ment either  fearful  surprise,  sudden  terror,  terrified  surprise, 
horror,  or  frightened  surprise.  McDougall  writes— "  Surprise 
is  merely  a  condition  of  general  excitement  which  supervenes 
upon  any  totally  unexpected  and  violent  mental  impression." 
etc.1  ''Startled  and  unpleasant  amazement"  brought  out  horror 
and  terror  very  strongly,  while  amazement  which  was  mildly 
unpleasant  was  seen  as  doubting,  anxious,  puzzled  and  perplexing 
surprise.  This  puzzled  expression  is  frequently  seen  in  the  mild 
amazement  as  contrasted  with  the  fear  and  terror  of  the  strong 
emotions.  In  "amazement  with  hate  and  scorn,"  the  amazement 
was  for  most  lost  in  the  stronger  emotion.  Of  the  twelve 
judgments  only  four  times  was  amazement  or  surprise  seen.  The 
hate  and  scorn  were  seen  as  strong  contempt,  angry  revenge, 
strong  scorn  and  anger,  mean,  vengeful  surprise,  and  resentful, 
antagonistic  surprise.  The  scorn  also  aroused  the  idea  of 
boastfulness  and  defiance. 

In  order  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
judgments,  four  of  the  pictures  used  in  the  experiment  have  been 
reproduced  on  page  173.  The  first  of  the  pictures  is  supposed 
to  represent  ''speechless  amazement. "- 

iSocial  Psychology.     Pg.  157. 

2The  12  judgments  for  this  picture,  that  is,  the  first  and  second  judgments  of  each  of  the  six- 
subjects,  are  as  follows: —  (1)  Frank  surprise,  (2)  Unsophisticated  wonder  with  fear,  mild; 
(1)  Stupefied  alarm,  (2)  Surprise;  (1)  Mingling  of  surprise  and  slight  displeasure,  (2)  Dumfounded, 
hah*  frightened;  (1)  Skeptical  surprise,  (2)  Surprise,  strong  apprehension;  (1)  Stiffened  amaze- 
ment, (2)  Strong  amazement  with  slight  fear;  (1)  Stupefied  alarm,  (2)  Startled  surprise. 


Herbert  Sidney  Lang  field  175 

The  anger  group  was  represented  by  very  strong,  peevish 
anger,  and  anger,  laughing  against  the  will.  The  feeling  of  pain, 
distress,  tormented  fear,  and  grief  were  seen  in  both  pictures 
more  frequently  than  the  more  aggressive  attitude  of  anger. 
This  apprehension  of  what  might  be  called  "centripetal"  feeling 
such  as  fear,  pain,  distress,  instead  of  the  more  violent  aggressive 
emotions  such  as  anger  and  hate  occurred  frequently  throughout 
the  experiment.  Intimation  of  peevishness  is  seen  jn  the  judg- 
ments of  fretful  pain,  complaining  and  distress,  about  to  cry. 
The  attitude  of  "laughing  against  the  will"  was  noticed  by  two 
of  the  subjects,  and  interpreted  as  transition  from  mirth  into 
pain  and  distress,  and  laughing  and  crying. 

A  "mild,  impotent  hate"  was  judged  several  times  as  a  feeling 
of  fear,  pain,  sorrow,  anxiety,  and  discontent.  Hate  was  only 
mentioned  once,  but  the  book-designation  was  accepted  by  three 
subjects.  Unqualified  hate  was  frequently  judged  as  anger,  and 
several  times  as  scorn  and  contempt,  but  never  as  hate.  On 
the  other  hand,  "vindictive  hate"  was  seen  by  five  subjects. 
Anger  was  here  also  shown  to  be  closely  related  to  hate,  and  the 
vindictiveness  is  seen  in  judgments  such  as  snarling  revenge  and 
extreme  malice. 

The  malicious  mood  accompanied  by  vindictive  laughter, 
was  frequently  interpreted  as  hate.  The  malice  appeared  in  such 
adjectives  as  nasty,  gloating,  hateful,  vindictive  joy,  triumphant 
hate,  and  spiteful  rage.  This  mood  seemed  very  well  represented 
in  the  facial  expressions. 

In  the  disdain,  contempt,  and  scorn  group,  disdain  was 
represented  together  with  very  mild  pride  and  superiority,  and 
greater  pride  and  superiority.  In  the  first  case,  the  superiority 
and  pride  were  noticed  as  smug  complacency,  arrogance,  haughty 
assurance,  egotistical  calm.  The  disdain  was  not  seen  until  it 
was  pointed  out.  In  the  other  case,  however,  when  the  pride 
was  more  strongly  represented,  the  disdain  was  seen  at  once,  and 
interpreted  by  some  as  disdain,  but  more  frequently  as  contempt, 
sneering,  and  scornful  arrogance.  This  seems  to  indicate  the 
importance  of  pride  in  the  attitude  of  disdain.  When  contempt 
is  portrayed  accompanied  by  a  mildly  ironical  and  superior 
smile,  the  superior  smile  gives  rise  to  the  judgments  of  self- 
satisfaction  and  scornful  arrogance,  and  pleasure  in  triumph, 
but  the  contempt  was  not  seen  until  the  title  was  shown,  except, 
perhaps,  in  the  case  of  scornful  arrogance.  When  the  contempt 
was  portrayed  with  diabolical  laughter,  the  diabolical  laughter 


176      The  Judgment  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

was  frequently  correctly  interpreted,  but  again  the  contempt 
was  not  seen  until  the  attention  was  directed  to  it.  It  seems 
evident  that  in  both  cases  the  laughter  drew  the  attention  from 
the  more  subtle  attitude  of  contempt.  An  interesting  picture 
represented  the  attitude  which  can  best  be  described  by  the 
phrase  "I  am  sorry,  but  I  cannot  help  you."  This  was  judged 
as  contempt,  disdain  and  arrogance.  This  attitude  is  seen  in 
the  uncharitable,  where  it  is  so  frequently  a  mixture  of  scorn  and 
a  suspicion  of  self-satisfaction,  which  latter  was  also  noticed  in 
this  picture.  In  the  picture  of  "scorn  with  wicked  laughter," 
anger  is  prominent  in  the  judgments  as  well  as  hate.  This  seems 
in  accordance  with  what  McDougall  says— "When  an  object 
excites  our  disgust  and  at  the  same  time  our  anger,  the  emotion 
aroused  is  scorn."3  In  scorn  with  cynical,  mild  contempt,  the 
scorn  was  seen  by  several,  but  the  cynical  attitude  was  observed 
only  when  pointed  out,  and  then  four  of  the  subjects  agreed  with 
the  title. 

A  number  of  pictures  were  shown  representing  misgiving 
with  various  combinations.  When  the  attitude  was  mild,  it 
was  interpreted  frequently  as  surprise,  when  stronger,  together 
with  surprise,  it  seemed  liked  distrust,  perplexity,  and  also  fear 
#nd  anxiety.  One  picture  portrayed  misgiving  together  with 
meditation  upon  evil.  It  was  the  latter  attitude  which  was 
noticed,  and  described  as  plotting,  disgruntled  discontent,  brood- 
ing, sullen,  and  vindictive.  Perplexity  was  the  only  description 
here  which  referred  at  all  to  misgiving.  The  same  can  be  said 
of  misgiving  with  a  meditative,  fixed  stare.  Here,  also,  per- 
plexity is  seen,  as  well  as  contemplative  thoughtfulness,  fierce 
contemplation,  perplexed  consideration,  etc.  In  the  picture 
entitled,  "misgiving  wavering  between  jest  and  earnest,"  the  con- 
flict, as  in  the  previous  instance  of  conflict,  was  seen  by  several 
of  the  subjects. 

In  the  picture  of  fear,  which  was  entitled  "fear  with  a  wicked, 
evil  conscience,"  the  fear  was  seen  and  also  the  surprise  which 
accompanies  fear,  and,  just  as  fear  was  seen  in  anger,  so  anger 
was  seen  in  fear.  The  second  picture  on  page  173  depicts  "fear  and 
horror."4  The  picture  of  "vary  strong  terror"  also  gave  rise  to 
several  judgments  of  anger.  The  terror  and  fear,  at  times 

SOpus  cit.  pg.  135. 

4The  judgments  were — (1)  Excessive  pain  and  suffering  of  self  or  others, (2)  despondent 
pain  over  another's  danger  or  disaster;  (1)  Pain,  (2)  Horror,  surprise;  (1)  Acute  pain  with  fear, 
(2)  Horrified  anguish,  contempt;  (1)  Anger,  (2)  Apprehension,  terror;  (1)  Terrified  fear,  (2)  In- 
sane fear;  (1)  Rage,  (2)  Terror  from  pain.  Here  also  anger  and  rage  are  seen  with  fear. 


Herbert  Sidney  Lang  field  177 

accompanied  by  amazement,  were  readily  seen.  In  the  picture 
portraying  "strong  anxiety  and  horror,"  the  stronger  reaction  of 
horror  diverted  the  attention  from  the  attitude  of  anxiety  so  that 
no  one  saw  the  latter  until  the  title  was  given  him.  Agair^,  as 
with  fear  and  terror,  the  accompanying  surprise  was  also  noticed. 
Aversion  was  represented  by  "aversion  with  strongly  suspicious 
fear"  and  "by  very  ordinary  aversion  accompanied  by  nausea." 
In  the  former  picture,  hate,  contempt,  anger,  and  disgust  predom- 
inated. The  fear  was  also  noticed  by  several,  but  there  was  no  im- 
pression of  suspicion  conveyed.  In  the  latter,  aversion  was  seen 
as  dislike,  scorn,  contempt  and  disgust.  Nausea  was  only  noticed 
by  two  subjects,  but  all  six  subjects  accepted  the  title  when  told. 
The  ideas  of  fear  and  of  anger  were  also  to  some  extent  aroused. 
That  these  two  emotions  should  be  seen  in  a  very  strong  ex- 
pression of  aversion  is  to  be  expected.  They  are  entirely  lacking 
in  the  milder  form  of  aversion  which  is  shown  in  the  third  picture 
on  page  173.  Here,  contempt  and  disgust  predominate.5 

The  distrust  group,  like  the  preceding  aversion  group, 
conveyed  the  attitude  intended.  "Simple  distrust  and  doubt" 
were  seen  as  suspicion,  bewilderment,  questioning  contempla- 
tion, and  puzzled  reflection.  The  ''distrust  with  suspicion  and 
fear"  aroused  in  most  cases  suspicion,  apprehension  and  anxiety. 
Only  one  judgment  mentioned  distrust  in  this  setting.  The 
third  picture  represented  distrust  with  strong  biting  of  the  under 
lip.  In  this  case,  distrust  was  only  mentioned  twice.  The  lines 
of  the  lip  combined  with  the  expression  of  distrust,  gave  rise  to 
judgments  of  determination  with  evil  intent,  such  as  plotting, 
angry  determination,  malice,  and  plotting  determination,  etc. 
The  fourth  picture  on  page  173  represents  "very  keen  distrust. "( 
One  picture  represented  sinister  determination,  animosity.  The 
determination  was  seen  by  several  subjects.  The  animosity  gave 
rise  to  judgments  of  resistance,  indignation,  dislike,  fierce  and 
bitter  determination.  Five  of  the  six  subjects  accepted  the 

5The  12  judgments  are  as  follows: — (1)  Disgusted  contempt,  (2)  Scornful  contempt  accom- 
panied by  an  inner  feeling  of  slight  puzzlement;  (1)  Contempt,  (2)  Dislike  and  disdain;(l)  Med- 
ium strong  contempt,(2)  Contemptuous  scorn;  (1)  Disgust,  (2)  Disgust;  (1)  Sneering  contempt, 
(2)  Mild  dislike  and  disgust;  (1)  Sneering  contempt;  (2)  Contemptuous  aversion. 

6The  12  judgments  are  as  follows: — (1)  Analytical,  reflective  with  anger,  (2)  Inquiring 
speculation  with  critical  construct! veness:  (1)  Concentration,  determination,  (2)  Contemplation, 
planning,  dislike;  (1)  Firm  and  mildly  angry  opposition,  (2)  Pugnacious  contemplation;  (1) 
Thoughtful  doubt,  uncertainty,  (2)  Doubt,  distrust;  (1)  Unintelligent  doubt,  (2)  Meditation, 
doubt  and  suspicion;  (1)  Scornful  distrust;  (2)  Deep  thought  with  suspicion.  The  book  title 
itself  in  this  instance  was  accepted  only  twice,  due  undoubtedly  to  the  fact  that  the  subjects' 
titles  were  more  fully  explanatory  of  the  intended  mood.  The  anger  seen  by  two  of  the  sub- 
jects was  seen  by  these  same  subjects  in  the  first  picture  mentioned  in  this  group. 


178       The  Judgment  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

book  title.     There  seems  to  be  evidence  that  determination  and 
forms  of  animosity  are  readily  seen. 

Laughter  is  probably  depicted  and  judged  more  easily  than 
any  other  emotion.  As  it  is  a  very  strong  emotion,  the  more 
subtle  states  are  often  hidden.  That  is  the  case  in  the  picture  of 
"suspicious  laughter,"  for  the  suspicion  is  not  seen  as  such,  although 
there  is  intimation  of  it  in  one  of  the  judgments.  Three  of  the 
subjects,  however,  selected  the  title  with  suspicion  when  pre- 
sented with  the  other  judgments. 

In  the  picture  of  "bodily  pain  and  screaming,"  the  pain  was 
seen  by  almost  all  the  subjects,  and  the  screaming  was  judged  as 
crying  by  two.  It  was  also  seen  as  anger  and  revenge  by  several. 

When  "entreaty  with  strong,  cordial  smile"  was  given,  the 
laughter  emotion  predominated,  and  the  entreaty  was  seen  only 
by  one  subject,  and  that  as  smiling  and  begging.  The  entreaty 
was,  however,  noticed  by  three  of  the  subjects  as  soon  as  atten- 
tion was  called  to  it. 

The  picture  of  "sulky,  defiant  ill  humor"  produced  uniform 
reactions.  Although  the  mood,  ill  humor,  was  not  mentioned 
in  the  judgments,  all  six  subjects  chose  the  book  title  from  among 
the  other  titles.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more  subtle  mood  of 
pessimism  was  accepted  in-  one  instance  by  only  one  subject,  and 
in  another  by  two,  and  referred  to  by  no  subject  in  his  original 
judgment. 

The  attitude  of  devotion  and  reverence  was  judged  as  peace- 
ful meditation,  religious  contemplation,  uplifting  thought,  etc, 
but  when  the  artist  attempted  to  portray  religious  inspiration, 
he  signally  failed.  Three  pictures,  supposedly  representing  this 
state,  were  interpreted  almost  without  exception  as  amazement, 
frequently  accompanied  by  fear.  It  may  be  that  this  failure  is 
caused  by  racial  difference,  the  Teuton  being  prone  to  express 
such  moods  in  exaggerated  form.  McDougall  says  "Emotions 
that  play  a  principal  part  in  religious  life  are  admiration,  awe 
and  reverence,  "f  The  awe  expressed  as  amazement  and  fear 
seems  to  be  the  only  element  of  this  religious  attitude  which 
the  artist  caught. 

At  the  end  of  the  series  of  experiments,  the  subjects  were 
asked  to  describe  the  method  by  which  they  interpreted  the 
experiment.  Their  interpretations  offered  sufficiently  interest- 
ing points  to  be  partially  reproduced  here.  That  which  strikes 
one  most  forcibly  is  the  close  agreement  of  the  various  reports. 
The  empathic  response  or  sympathetic  imitation  of  the  facial 


Herbert  Sidney  Lang f eld  179 

expression  in  the  picture  is  the  one  almost  invariably  adopted. 
There  is  frequent  reference  to  kinaesthetic  sensations  of  imitation 
in  the  observer's  own  face.  Rarely,  however,  is  this  facial 
imitation  sufficient  in  itself  to  establish  a  satisfactory  judgment. 
Five  of  the  six  subjects  referred  to  the  fact  that  they  had  to 
imagine  an  entire  situation  which  would  involve  responses 
of  the  entire  organism.  The  individual  of  the  picture  was 
imagined  in  a  certain  definite  situation  such  as  being  faced  by 
some  one  against  whom  he  could  show  his  anger.  At  times  the 
observer  consciously  imaged  himself  in  the  scene.  It  is  probable 
that  at  other  times  he  unconsciously  identified  himself  with 
one  of  the  group.  The  emotion,  at  least  in  its  incipient  stage 
was  aroused  in  him  by  this  participation. 

In  some  instances  an  association  was  formed  between  the 
picture  and  some  well  known  painting  expressing  definite  emo- 
tions or  else  situations  which  had  actually  occurred  in  the  ex- 
perience of  the  subject  were  recalled. 

Only  one  subject  denied  any  active  participation.  That  the 
introspection  of  this  subject  did  not  discover  such  an  attitude 
is  not  positive  proof  of  its  non-existence,  partly  for  the  reason 
that  she  was  not  very  well  trained  in  such  reports.  An  ex- 
planation of  her  exceptional  attitude,  however,  is  suggested  by 
her  own  description.  She  had  all  through  her  life  made  a  study 
of  faces,  and  had  thereby  made  close  associations  between  certain 
emotions,  personal  characteristics,  etc.,  and  the  various  lines  of 
the  face.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  through  this  habit  the 
emotions  were  more  directly  observed  than  in  the  case  of  the 
other  subjects.  It  is  needless  to  state  that  the  other  subjects 
also  must  have  made  some  direct  response,  either  through 
direct  empathic  imitation  of  the  features,  or  through  association 
with  some  known  situation;  otherwise,  they  could  have  had 
no  clue  by  which  to  start  their  imagery.  That  is,  there  must  liave 
been  some  impression  before  imaging  a  situation  in  order  to  give 
it  the  proper  setting.  The  situation  would  then  offer  them 
opportunity  to  experience  more  subtle  shades  and  combinations, 
and  to  correct  their  first  impressions. 

Mention  was  also  made  by  several  subjects  of  the  fact  that 
they  got  their  clue  from  certain  features  to  the  exclusion  of  others. 
It  is  fair  to  assume  that  this  frequently  occurred,  especially  when 
certain  features  were  more  strongly  affected  than  others,  and 
that  this  caused  a  wrong,  or  at  least  only  partial,  judgment.  Is 
it  not  just  this  habit  of  being  attracted  by  the  more  pronounced 


180      The  Judgment  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

lines  of  the  face  that  so  often  causes  one,  in  actual  life,  to  misread 
character?  Frequently  we  are  deceived  into  judging  by  the 
stronger  and  more  transient  expressions,  and  neglecting  the 
subtler  and,  perhaps,  more  important  lines 

The  following  are  extracts  from  the  introspections.  One 
subject  writes:  "Frequently  the  expression  was  visualized  as 
appearing  upon  the  face  of  some  person  of  my  acquaintance,  and 
the  effort  was  made  to  estimate  the  circumstance  that  would  call 
forth  that  expression.  Where  the  picture  shown  represented  an 
expression  of  common  occurrence  or  of  not  too  detailed  a  char- 
acter, this  general  idea  was  enough  to  indicate  the  estimate  of 
the  picture,  the  judgment  being  rendered  very  promptly.  A 
few  times  I  was  conscious  of  a  definite  attempt  to  reproduce  the 
expression  in  my  own  countenance  in  order  that  the  resultant 
lines  and  sensations  might  aid  in  getting  the  meaning.  Fre- 
quently the  expression  was  analysed,  the  effort  being  made  to 
determine  the  meaning  of  the  eyes  by  themselves,  then  the 
mouth,  etc.  The  result  would  sometimes  be  a  unit,  often  a 
positive,  complex  description.  The  judgment  was  frequently 
made  by  trying  to  imagine  what  was  before  the  eyes  of  the  man 
in  the  picture,  that  is,  trying  to  imagine  the  circumstances  which 
would  be  apt  to  produce  such  a  facial  reaction. " 

A  second  subject  writes: "For  the  most  part  the  particular 
face  was  inserted  in  a  visually  imagined  episode;  and  the  judg- 
ment of  the  individual's  emotion  made  according  to  what  would 
necessarily  be  involved  in  the  given  situation.  Sometimes 
there  was  an  addition  of  auditory  images  of  what  the  individual 
under  the  circumstances  might  say.  A  second  method  employed 
now  and  then  involved  imagining  the  individual  and  myself 
alone  in  a  situation.  In  this  case,  also,  the  auditory  images 
perhaps  more  often  played  a  role.  In  some  further  cases,  the 
two  methods  were  combined;  the  method  being  to  imagine  a 
situation  involving  the  individual  with  several  others  and  myself 
either  with  or  without  the  auditory  imagery.  Rather  often  all 
of  these  methods  included  specific  memory  images  of  actual 
experiences  in  which  individuals  gave  vent  to  certain  expressions 
and  emotions.  In  almost  every  case,  also,  there  was  a  distinct 
kinaesthetic  imagery  in  myself,  especially,  the  muscles  of  the 
face:  a  slight  tendency  to  mimic  the  expression  in  the 
picture.  Almost  always  this  was  involuntary.  Actual  ex- 
pressions almost  resulted,  often  before  I  was  conscious  of  the 
strength  of  this  imitative  impulse.  This  was  most  common 


Herbert  Sidney  Lang f eld  181 


in  the  cases  when  I  imaged  myself  as  a  member  of  a  group  in  a 
situation,  from  which  I  reasoned  by  analogy  the  emotion  of  the 
individual  in  the  pictures  . 

A  third  subject  records:" In  judging  the  facial  expression  of 
the  pictures  I  find  that  in  most  cases  I  look  first  at  the  mouth, 
and  jaw.  When  I  have  secured  an  impression  of  any  kind,  I 
have  a  tendency  to  set  my  own  jaws  and  lips  in  the  same  attitude 
and  with  something  of  the  same  degree  of  muscular  tension. 
This  done,  I  imagine  a  situation  in  which  I  might  be  disposed 
to  use  such  a  muscular  set.  Almost  always  I  employed  words  to 
suit  the  case,  and  imagined  other  people  to  whom  I  was  reacting 
and  a  situation  in  which  we  were  placed.  I  think  it  is  fair  to  say 
that  there  was  practically  always  a  social  aspect  to  my  percep- 
tion of  the  picture.  In  many  cases  the  kinaesthesis  extended 
into  my  arms  and  thorax,  if  not  throughout  the  whole  body.  It 
is  safe  to  assume  so,  at  least,  for  I  am  strongly  kinaesthetic  at 
all  times. 

After  the  first  inspection  of  the  lower  part  of  the  face,  I 
took  in  the  nose,  cheeks,  and  then  the  eyes.  I  can  see  now  that 
out  of  this  procedure  came  the  basis  on  which  I  sometimes  chang- 
ed later.  I  was  set  at  first  by  the  lower  half  of  the  face; 
the  set  was  strengthened  by  use  of  words  and  an  ensuing  kinaes- 
thesis; then  when  I  took  in  the  eyes  and  forehead,  I  was  not  so 
ready  to  give  them  their  due  weight  as  I  should  have  been.  I 
was  influenced  toward  this  action  by  the — to  me — very  remark- 
able lips  and  jaw  of  the  man  whose  face  was  pictured.  They 
struck  me  from  the  first  and  took  the  center  of  consciousness, 
almost  always,  immediately  the  picture  was  disclosed. 
When  it  came  to  the  second  presentation  of  the  picture,  I 
was  frequently  made  to  see,  by  the  judgments  of  other  subjects, 
that  I  had  not  given  all  parts  of  the  face  due  consideration.  In 
deciding  whether  to  change  or  keep  my  own  judgment  I  was 
therefore  called  on  to  determine  whether  I  had  given  due  value 
to  all  the  factors  in  the  presented  expression.  Sometimes  I 
found  elements  that  had  been  overlooked,  and  then  I  changed. 
If  I  did  not  find  any,  I  tended  to  stand  by  my  original  statement. " 

A  fourth  subject  writes  "Sometimes  I  tried  to  think  of  my- 
self with  that  particular  facial  expression,  but  usually  I  thought 
of  that  expression  on  another  face,  and  tried  to  think  when  and 
where  I  had  seen  a  similar  expression  before.  There  were  certain 
expressions  of  the  eyes  and  mouth  which  I  also  remembered  as 
having  been  taught  meant  certain  definite  things." 


The  Judy  men  I  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

A  fifth  subject  says  "In  judging  the  facial  expression,  I 
almost  invariably  imagined,  and  always  in  visual  terms,  some 
situation  in  which  the  character  might  have  assumed  such  an 
expression.  Then,  very  frequently,  I  thought  of  my  face  screwed 
up  or  composed  in  that  way,  and  how  I  would  have  to  feel  to 
assume  such  an  expression.  This  imagery  was  so  strong  that  I 
frequently  noticed  my  facial  muscles  twitching.  At  times,  but 
rarely,  I  consciously  and  deliberately  assumed  the  expression 
of  the  face  in  the  picture.  This  was  usually  in  the  case  of  ex- 
pressions that  wTere  difficult  to  judge.  At  other  times  it  was  like 
seeing  a  tableau  with  one  of  the  actors  looking  like  the  picture, 
and  then  trying  to  imagine  what  the  others  were  doing  to  make 
him  look  like  that.  I  noticed  many  associations  with  the  story- 
books I  had  read  and  incidents  of  my  own  life.  Especially  was 
this  true  at  the  beginning  of  the  experiments.  Judgments  at 
the  latter  part  were  less  intensely  personal.  Visualization  was 
not  so  vivid  and  at  times  almost  absent." 

The  sixth  subject,  who  was  the  one  mentioned  above  as 
not  having  kinaesthetic  imitation,  remarks  "It  is  easier  for  me 
to  tell  the  methods  I  did  not  use  in  judging  the  facial  expressions 
than  the  one  I  did.  I  could  not  get  any  clue  as  to  the  emotions 
expressed  by  imitating  the  facial  expressions  or  trying  to  imag- 
ine how  I  should  feel  if  I  looked  like  that.  Neither  could  I  get 
any  idea  by  thinking  of  other  people.  All  my  life  I  have  stud- 
ied peoples'  faces  in  cars,  theatres,  restaurants,  to  see  what 
characteristics  they  showed.  I  never  used  comparisons,  but  al- 
ways looked  first  for  the  general  idea,  then  analysed  each  feature 
and  line  to  see  what  each  contributed  to  the  general  impression. 
I  had  never  seen,  iri  actual  life,  such  strong  and  violent  emotions 
as  the  man  expressed,  so  I  merely  considered  him  as  an  indivi- 
dual, and  used  the  same  methods  as  I  employed  on  living 
people.  Some  pictures  reminded  me  of  paintings  and  por- 
traits I  have  seen,  carefully  labelled  by  the  artist  as  to  the  em- 
otion, and  this  was  a  little  help  in  knowing  how  others  regard- 
ed the  emotions  they  were  expressing." 

|^  ^  The  similarity  in  description  of  these  subjects  is  so  marked 
that  it  might  be  suspected  that  their  introspection  had  been 
suggested  by  the  experimenter.  The  question  put  to  them  in 
written  form  was  simply  "Describe  as  fully  as  possible  the 
manner  in  which  you  judged  the  facial  expressions."  Without 
consulting  anyone,  they  wrote  out  their  description,  and  handed 
it  to  me,  and  it  has  never  been  shown  to  anyone. 


Herbert  Sidney  Lang f eld  183 

In  conclusion,  the  following  brief  summary  may  be  added. 
It  did  not  need  this  experiment  to  prove  the  well  known  fact 
that  emotions  and  attitudes  can  be  judged  from  pictures.  That 
the  judgments  would  be  so  uniformly  good  and  consistent, 
however,  even  when  made  by  individuals  who,  with  a  few  ex- 
ceptions, had  never  assumed  any  particular  aptitude  in  this 
direction,  is  of  some  interest  in  the  study  of  emotions.  Even 
many  subtle  combinations  of  emotions  were  observed,  and  con- 
flicts such  as  half  crying  and  laughing,  or  between  jest  and 
earnest,  were  noticed. 

Laughter  was,  almost  without  exception,  observed.  Anger, 
fear,  and  hatred  were  also  most  expressive  in  all  their  forms. 
The  intimate  relation  of  anger  and  fear  was  brought  out. 
Fear  was  seen  when  anger  predominated  and  anger  when  fear 
was  uppermost.  Fear  was  also  seen  in  amazement. 

Hatred  was  frequently  interpreted  by  the  more  active, 
attitude  of  anger  and  contempt  resulting  from  it.  Suspicion 
was  often  judged  as  surprise.  The  contempt  and  scorn  group 
was  unmistakable,  the  lines  of  the  mouth  and  also  part  of  the 
nostril  rarely  escaping  attention,  or  missing  their  effect. 

When  a  combination  was  presented,  the  stronger  emotion 
frequently  inhibited  the  perception  of  the  more  subtle  and, 
sometimes,  more  important  one. 

Certain  moods  such  as  sullenness  and  peevishness  were 
correctly  interpreted.  It  could  hardly  be  expected,  however, 
that  temperamental  attitudes  such  as  covetousness  and  pessi- 
mism would  be  seen.  It  is  the  effect  of  these  impressions  that  is 
observed;  the  temperaments  themselves  are  judged  by  inference, 
and  the  subjects  were  either  incapable  or,  at  least,  not  instructed 
by  the  general  nature  of  this  experiment  to  make  such  deductions. 

The  reports  of  the  subjects  showed  that  they  obtained  their 
results  frequently  by  kinaesthetic  imitation,  and  by  association 
with  known  experiences,  and  by  the  imagining  of  situations 
which  would  give  rise  to  such  emotions.  Modern  psychology 
teaches  us  that  cognition  is  an  active  attitude  toward  an  object, 
and  although  we  are  not  conscious  of  it  in  judging  our  fellow 
beings,  our  organism  is  undoubtedly  adjusted  according  to  the 
clue  afforded  by  the  expression.  In  the  field  of  art,  empathic 
imitation  is  practically  universal.  Here,  not  only  do  we  have 
the  facial  expression,  but  also  most  frequently  the  situation. 
The  results  of  the  introspection  give  some  indication  of  th 


184       The  Judgment  of  Emotions  from  Facial  Expressions 

importance  of  the  surroundings  in  a  picture  for  the  conveyance 
of  the  true  message  in  the  face. 

In  a  subsequent  paper,7  results  of  further  experimentation 
will  be  recorded.  It  will  be  shown  how  wide  is  the  range  of 
ability  in  interpreting  emotion  thus  expressed.  It  will  also.be 
shown  how  very  suggestible  some  individuals  are  in  this  regard.8 

7To  appear  in  the  Psychological  Review. 

SMiss  Feleky,  in  an  experiment  similar  to  the  one  described,  obtained  some  results  in  accord 
with  ours.  She  found  that  the  aversion,  contempt,  sneer  group  was  easily  observed,  hate  brought 
out  disgust,  and  rage  gave  terror.  She  found  that  fear  was  part  of  suspicion.  Laughter  was 
also  easily  observed  by  her  subjects.  In  our  experiment,  determination  was  frequently  correctly 
interpreted.  Miss  Feleky's  results  are  not  in  accord  on  this  point,  probably  due  to  the  pictures 
she  used.  (The  Expression  of  Emotions,  A.  M.  Feleky,  Psychol.  Review,  1914,  pp.  33-41.) 


NARCOLEPSY1 

C.  B.  BURR,  M.   D., 

MEDICAL  DIRECTOR,  OAK  GROVF,  FLINT,  MICH. 

LH.  P.  was  forty  years  of  age  when  he  first  came  under 
observation,  referred  to  me  by  Dr.  Felshaw  of  Holly, 
Michigan.  As  a  boy  he  lived  on  a  small  farm  and 
worked  by  the  day.  At  eighteen  he  was  employed  as 
laborer  by  a  lumber  company  and  later  for  fourteen  years  on  a 
band  saw  and  shaper;  recently  in  a  piano  factory.  Education  is 
slight.  He  found  reading  particularly  difficult,  being  easily  em- 
barrassed. He  drank  occasionally  but  has  no  habit  of  intemper- 
ance and  was  never  intoxicated  but  once.  Since  eighteen  he  has 
smoked  excessively;  sexual  habits  good.  His  father  deserted  the 
family  before  the  patient's  birth.  The  father  was  industrious 
and  resourceful,  was  temperate  in  habits,  but  from  one  account 
received,  somewhat  erratic.  The  mother  died  of  apoplexy  at  the 
age  of  sixty -eight.  In  later  years  she  suffered  from  rheumatism 
and  occasionally  from  asthma.  A  sister  of  the  mother  died 
from  what  was  called  "bronchial  consumption;"  she  "choked 
to  death. " 

From  the  age  of  ten  to  twenty  years  the  patient  suffered 
from  asthma.  He  speaks  of  impairment  of  hearing  in  the  left 
ear  but  examination  does  not  confirm  this.  At  the  age  of  eight 
he  received  an  injury  to  the  head  from  an  axe  helve.  There  is  a 
two-inches-in-length,  narrow  groove-like  line  created  apparently 
at  the  expense  of  the  outer  table  following  the  coronal  suture 
right  side;  no  depression  of  bone.  He  has  no  recollection  of  how 
serious  the  trauma  was  regarded  at  the  time  it  occurred,  nor 
as  to  the  extent  of  debility.  There  is  a  difference  of  opinion 
between  his  wife  and  himself  as  to  emotional  and  inhibitory 
qualities.  He  himself  claims  a  good  disposition  but  the  marital 
partner  avers  that  he  is  high  tempered  and  sometimes  unfair  to 
the  children. 

I  was  consulted  because  of  a  condition  of  somnolence  which 
came  upon  him  now  and  then  overwhelmingly  and  had  been 

^ead  at  the  44th  Annual  Meeling  of  the  American  Neurological  Association  at  Atlantic 
City  May  9th,  1918. 

185 


186  Narcolepsy 

present  for  sixteen  years.  It  often  affects  him  while  at  work, 
and  almost  invariably  if  he  is  not  busy.  It  has  increased  in 
severity  with  time  but  varies  in  accordance  with  the  activities 
of  the  moment.  The  recollection  of  the  first  attack  is  that  he 
became  drowsy  and  had  to  fight  off  the  sensation.  A  fellow 
workman  at  a  machine  eight  or  nine  years  ago  mentioned  to  the 
patient  (so  he  says)  that  he  had  seen  him  several  times  with  the 
eyes  shut  and  feeding  a  planer.  This  person  subsequently  in- 
terviewed, had  no  recollection  of  the  observation  but  said  that  he 
had  "seen  him  when  he  looked  sleepy,  and  considered  him  of  the 
lazy  sort."  When  drowsiness  threatened,  he  was  accustomed 
to  shake  himself  or  to  go  for  a  drink  of  water.  Frequently  in 
this  manner  the  attack  was  aborted.  A  change  of  employment 
was  always  helpful.  Such  had  been  made  just  before  I  saw  him 
two  years  after  the  first  consultation.  He  had  been  assigned  to 
a  new  and  slightly  unfamiliar  work  and  for  the  preceding  week 
there  had  been  no  attack  while  in  the  shop.  He  can  drop  asleep 
at  any  time  he  wishes  and  is  certain  to  when  he  sits  down  on 
return  from  work.  A  description  of  the  last  attack  is  like  many 
which  he  has  experienced.  "Before  I  knew  it  I  was  dumb- 
founded like."  He  had  dropped  asleep  soon  after  reaching 
home.  "My  wife  called  to  me,"  he  said:  "I  woke  right  up  but 
could  not  for  a  time  move  from  the  chair.  I  couldn't  have 
moved  if  the  house  had  been  on  fire.  It  was  half  a  minute 
before  I  could  get  myself  together."  "Once  when  I  was  sleep- 
ing in  my  chair  a  rap  came  at  the  door.  My  wife  called  the 
second  time.  I  heard  her  but  couldn't  raise  myself  out  of  the 
chair.  I  seemed  dumbfounded  like  but  knew  there  was  some- 
body at  the  door.  I  go  to  work  in  the  morning.  Sometimes 
during  the  forenoon  there  will  be  a  feeling  of  sleepiness.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  keep  from  dropping  my  work.  Sometimes 
the  sleep  is  heavier  than  others  according  to  what  I  am  doing; 
am  bothered  in  the  same  way  in  the  afternoon.  If  I  feel  it 
coming  on  I  go  out  into  the  fresh  air.  It  will  come  back  when 
I  go  home.  If  I  sit  down  I  go  to  sleep."  The  awakening,  if 
spontaneous,  is  always  the  same.  "It  leaves  me  as  quick  as  scat. 
Lots  of  times  it  comes  over  me  like  dumbfounding.  I  don't 
realize  what  I  am  doing.  I  can't  really  explain  it,  I  slack  right 
up  with  my  work.  If  I  go  too  sound  asleep  I  can't  refer  myself 
to  what  I  was  doing  at  the  time.  I  have  to  stop  and  look  at  feel 
work  to  see  if  I  am  doing  it  right.  Just  after  it  leaves  me  I  my 
pain  over  my  right  temple  both  sides  and  back  of  the  eyes." 


C.  H.  Burr  187 

Sometimes  he  has  a  hazy  recollection  of  what  is  going  on  and 
when  lying  down  apparently  in  deep  sleep  answers  as  if  partially 
conscious. 

At  the  first  examination  he  mentioned  pain  over  the  temples 
and  uncomfortable  sensations  in  the  neck  following  attacks. 
Latterly,  there  have  been  no  phenomena  of  this  kind.  An  inter- 
esting feature  is  related  to  emotional  expression.  He  is  unable 
to  laugh  as  others  do.  If  anything  amuses  him,  the  physiog- 
nomy is  distorted  and  uncomely.  When  playing  with  the 
children  he  is  apt  to  lose  muscular  control.  "If  anything  should 
come  up  that  would  cause  me  to  laugh  real  hard,  that  strikes  me 
as  real  funny,  I  seem  to  wrinkle  right  down,  losing  my  strength 
until  I  catch  myself. " 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  night  he  says  he  is  as  a  rule 
wakeful.  His  wife  sleeps  with  him  but  has  not  observed  any 
evidence  of  convulsive  attacks.  There  has  never  been  biting  or 
laceration  of  the  tongue,  never  blood  on  the  pillow.  His  wife  is 
perfectly  confident  that  in  the  emotional  attacks  mentioned 
when  he  crumples  up,  there  is  not  the  slightest  loss  of  conscious- 
ness. The  sleepy  state  lasts  as  a  rule  not  more  than  fifteen 
minutes  when,  if  he  is  not  aroused  before,  it  terminates  spon- 
taneously and  control  is  complete.  If  awakened,  he  finds  it 
momentarily  impossible  to  rise  from  the  chair.  He  speaks  of 
slight  memory  defect  but  from  his  own  account  this  is  immaterial. 
He  has  no  difficulty  whatever  in  giving  an  accurate  account  of  a 
recent  day's  doings.  "Once  I  was  stamping  numbers  on  a  piano 
and  it  came  on  me  so  quick  that  I  stamped  the  whole  dozen 
numbers  all  the  same.  After  the  attack  was  over,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  I  might  have  made  a  mistake  so  I  looked  at  them, 
marked  the  numbers  out  and  stamped  them  all  over  again. 
When  anyone  goes  by  me  during  an  attack,  or  particularly  when 
anyone  comes  up  behind  me,  I  am  just  as  wide  awake  as  ever. " 
His  description  of  "dumbfounding"  indicates  merely  a  strong 
impulse  to  go  to  sleep.  Whether  this  is  resisted  or  not  depends 
upon  circumstances.  There  are  no  tremors,  ataxia,  or  Romberg. 
The  reflexes  are  normal,  the  pupils  are  equal,  there  are  no  focal 
or  Jacksonian  symptoms. 

He  is  subject  to  dreams  which  are  for  the  most  part  pleasant. 
Once  in  a  dream  or  confusional  state  he  jumped  from  bed,  seized 
and  loaded  a  gun,  and  made  his  way  to  the  kitchen.  This  room 
was  colder  than  others  in  the  house  and  the  chill  awakened  him. 
He  explained  to  his  wife  that  he  thought  he  had  heard  a  noise. 


188  Narcolepsy 

She  attributed  the  circumstance  to  nightmare.  His  wife  says, 
"When  he  is  pleased  over  anything,  I  could  lead  him  around  or 
throw  him  down.  He  seems  to  lose  his  strength  altogether. 
When  he  returns  from  work  at  the  close  of  the  day,  he  almost 
invariably  goes  to  sleep  in  his  chair.  Sometimes  he  will  answer 
if  spoken  to.  At  other  times  it  is  necessary  to  shake  him. "  She 
is  under  the  conviction  that  he  was  marked  by  his  deserted  and 
lonely  mother.  He  was  born  August  1st  and  in  the  later  weeks 
of  pregnancy  the  heat  affected  her  greatly.  She  was  accustomed 
to  sleep  in  her  chair  for  long  hours. 

Kraepelin  makes  the  following  observation  respecting  the 
condition  under  consideration:  "Furthermore  Friedman,  follow- 
ing the  work  of  Gelineau,  has  set  off  a  special  form  of  small 
attacks,  which  he  designates  as  Narkolepsie.  Such  conditions 
consist  of  brief  transitory  mental  lapses  in  youthful  individuals, 
which  resemble  epileptic  attacks,  but  are  regarded  by  him  as 
being  peculiar  attacks  that  occur  after  fright  and  emotional 
excitement,  or  looking  into  the  light.  They  are  not  influenced 
by  bromides  and  do  not  lead  to  deterioration.  After  a  number 
of  years,  one  may  recover.  The  patients  have  attacks  more  or 
less  frequently,  having  as  many  as  100  during  the  day.  They 
last  for  }<£-3  minutes,  and  during  this  time  there  exists  a  sort  of 
inhibition  of  thought,  without  loss  of  consciousness.  This  robs 
the  individual  of  his  freedom  of  action  and  is  sometimes  accom- 
panied by  peculiar  actions,  such  as  exhibitionism.  The  pupils 
are  often  dilated  and  the  eyes  turned  upward.  It  seems  to  me 
most  likely  that  these  conditions  should  be  regarded  as  hysteri- 
cal. Much  valuable  information  can  be  found  on  this  subject 
by  further  observations  and  perhaps  it  would  be  well  to  include 
among  these,  those  which  have  been  described  by  Schanz,  Codi- 
villa,  and  Gaugele,  who  have  observed  attacks  like  epilpesy 
occurring  after  severe  orthopedic  operations.  These  attacks 
seem  to  be  released  by  the  emotional  excitement  of  the  situation." 

Dejerine  writes  more  clearly. 

"Narcolepsie. — This  term  was  employed  for  the  first  time  by 
Gelineau  (1881)  to  designate  a  rare  neurosis,  characterized  by  a 
sudden,  irresistible  need  of  sleep,  ordinarily  of  short  duration, 
occurring  at  intervals  more  or  less  frequent  and  obliging  the 
subject  to  fall  or  to  stretch  himself  out  to  obey  it. 

"The  onset  of  sleep  is  more  or  less  violent,  preceded  by  ex- 
treme lassitude,  by  a  sensation  of  cephalic  constriction.  The 
eyelids  are  heavy,  the  eyes  are  the  seat  of  light  tingling.  The 


C.  B.  Burr  189 

gait  is  painful  and  uncertain.  Almost  always  before  the  patient 
yields  to  sleep  there  is  a  prodromal  period,  but  this  is  more  or 
less  short  and  sometimes  so  slight  that  the  patient  is  attacked 
in  the  midst  of  his  occupation  without  time  to  protect  himself 
against  accident  to  which  the  deep  sleep  exposes  him.  When  the 
patient  succumbs  to  sleep,  muscular  relaxation  is  generally 
complete.  The  lifted  limbs  fall  inert,  lines  of  expression  are 
effaced,  and  even,  according  to  Fere,  the  muscles  of  the  face 
appear  paralyzed  and  the  cheeks  move  with  each  respiration. 
Sometimes  in  place  of  being  in  relaxation,  the  muscles  are  in  a 
more  or  less  marked  convulsive  state. 

"The  general  and  special  sensibilities  are  blunted  and 
intense  and  repeated  effort  is  required  to  momentarily  rouse  a 
patient  from  torpor.  The  general  functions  of  the  organism  are 
slowed.  The  temperature  remains  normal. 

"During  sleep  the  intellectual  functions  are  variable.  Now 
unconsciousness  is  absolute.  Again,  certain  elementary  psychic 
processes  persist,  disclosing  themselves  by  gestures,  confused 
words,  and  sometimes  by  somnambulism.  There  are  patients 
whose  consciousness  is  vigilant  and  who  are  afterward  capable 
of  relating  that  which  has  happened  during  sleep. 

"The  duration  of  the  attack  varies  from  some  seconds  to 
several  hours  and  is  almost  constant  for  the  individual  case. 
Awakening  is  sudden  or  gradual,  corresponding  to  the  length  of 
the  sleeping  state.  The  circumstances  which  determine  crises 
are  extremely  variable  but  are  sometimes  quite  definitely  fixed 
for  the  individual  subject. " 

I  last  saw  the  patient  by  appointment  on  the  30th  of  March. 
While  waiting  in  the  office  he  fell  asleep  in  a  chair  and  two  em- 
ployees who  happened  to  see  him  remarked  that  the  sleep  was  of 
natural  appearance.  Physical  examination  was  practically  nega- 
tive. He  is  well  developed.  There  was  no  evidence  of  present 
or  past  venereal  or  constitutional  disease.  The  blood  pressure 
was  systolic  120;  diastolic  75;  Urinalysis  gave  no  findings  of  con- 
sequence. 

Naturally,  in  view  of  the  head  trauma  in  particular,  petit 
mal  pressed  itself  obtrusively  for  consideration  but  was  excluded 
to  my  own  complete  satisfaction. 


REVIEWS 

JESUS,  THE  CHRIST,  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.  By  G. 
Stanley  Hall,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Psychology,  President -of 
Clark  University.  In  two  volumes.  Boxed.  Garden  City  and  New 
York:  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  1917.  Net,  $7.50. 

Those  who  have  read  some  of  the  works  of  G.  Stanley  Hall,  know 
that  there  is  only  one  Stanley  Hall.  He  is  an  all-round  thinker.  He 
has  a  way  of  writing,  of  piling  fact  on  fact  and  theory  on  theory,  which 
is  quite  characteristic  of  him,  and  one  needs  but  pick  up  the  volumes 
before  us  and  read  a  few  selected  portions  here  and  there  to  know  at 
once  that  the  author  is  that  inimitable  writer  and  thinker,  Stanley  Hall. 

I  knew  before-hand,  then,  that  I  was  to  sit  down  to  a  luxurious 
intellectual  feast  when  I  opened  the  volumes  of  "Jesus,  The  Christ, 
In  The  Light  of  Psychology. "  Especially  interested  in  Hall's  method 
of  presentation  of  this  subject  and  what  he  would  have  to  say  was  I 
because  I  had  not  long  ago  read  a  li  ttle  work  which  all  who  propose  to 
read  Hall's  new  work  should  read  in  preparation  for  it.  I  refer  to  the 
volume  entitled  "G.  Stanley  Hall,  A  Sketch"  by  Louis  N.  Wilson,  the 
librarian  at  Clark  University,  published  in  1914.  One  should  know  the 
author  of  a  work  of  the  kind  I  am  here  reviewing.  You  will  ap- 
preciate the  reading  of  it  so  much  the  more. 

Volume  1,  with  its  325  pages,  besides  the  introduction,  deals  with 
"Jesus'  Physical  Personality, "  "  Jesus  in  Literature, "  "  Jesus'  Charac- 
ter, Negative  Views, "  "The  Nativity,"  and  "Beginnings  of  the  Su- 
preme Pedagogy." 

Volume  11,  with  its  408  pages,  has  six  chapters,  dealings  with 
"Messianity,  Sonship,  and  the  Kingdom,"  "Jesus'  Eschatology,  His 
Inner  Character,  Purpose,  and  Work,"  "Jesus'  Ethics  and  Prayer," 
"The  Parables  of  Jesus,"  "The  Miracles,"  and  "Death  and  Resur- 
rection of  Jesus. " 

Since  these  volumes  are  the  result  of  nearly  twenty  years  and 
more  of  study  of  this  topic,  by  a  man  with  a  wonderfully  keen  and 
analytical  mind,  a  tremendous  reader,  a  prodigious  worker,  and  one 
who  approaches  his  problem  with  a  background  of  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  psychology  in  all  its  ramifications,  and  with  a  firm  grounding  in 
allied  scientific  fields  of  endeavor,  one  may  well  say  that  there  is  no 
other  living  man  who  could  have  written  on  this  subject  in  anything 
like  the  manner  in  which  Hall  has  done  so. 

190 


Reviews  191 

Hall  thoroughly  discusses  all  that  is  written  about  Christ,  and  the 
probable  mental  mechanisms  of  Christ  and  of  those  who  believed  in 
him  and  wrote  about  him.  He  analyzes  all  the  myths,  the  magic, 
etc.,  built  up  about  the  name  and  life  of  Christ.  He  dissects  the 
parables,  and  discusses  the  miracles,  the  death  and  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus.  He  endeavors  to  reduce  all  possible  expressions  or  trends 
which  he  finds  in  Jesus  and  his  followers  to  their  genetic  origins,  and 
with  the  aid  of  comparative  psychology,  especially  a  knowledge  of 
anthropology  and  childhood  tendencies,  he  points  out  here  and  there 
certain  universal  trends  which  are  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  A  study 
of  Christ  and  his  followers,  therefore,  lays  bare  for  us  the  fundamental 
nature  of  what  Hall  calls  the  Mansoul.  Consequently,  he  contends, 
even  if  Christ  never  lived  and  the  story  built  up  about  him  is  nothing 
more  than  a  myth,  the  meaning  of  it  all  is  just  as  true  for  every  one  of 
us,  for  it  discloses  some  of  the  basic  needs  and  tendencies  of  mankind. 

Even  though  it  all  be  allegory  or  symbolism  or  myth  or  figurative 
rather  than  literal,  Hall  says  in  the  introduction:  "As  a  result  of  all 
this,  I  believe  I  can  now  repeat  almost  every  clause  of  the  Apostles' 
Creed  with  a  fervent  sentiment  of  conviction.  My  intellectual  inter- 
pretation of  the  meaning  of  each  item  of  it  probably  differs  toto  caelo 
from  that  of  the  average  orthodox  believer.  To  me  not  a  clause  of  it 
is  true  in  a  crass,  literal,  material  sense,  but  all  of  it  is  true  in  a  sense 
far  higher,  which  is  only  symbolized  on  the  literal  plane. "  Although 
personally  I  cannot  subscribe  to  this  statement,  since  I  believe  that 
human  freedom  and  conscious,  reasoned  control  of  human  life  and 
relations  lie  in  another  direction,  still,  it  shows  how  sympathetically 
and  kindly  Hall  has  dealt  with  every  aspect  of  his  subject  throughout 
this  classic. 

There  is  no  need  to  quote  from  this  work,  for  all  of  it  is  written 
in  a  flowing  style,  the  thoughts  being  wonderfully  expressed,  and  so 
much  of  it  so  superb  that  one  can  quote  and  quote  without  end. 

There  are  a  few  criticisms  which  can  be  offered,  such  as  the  ab- 
sence of  a  summary  in  such  work  as  this,  presented  in  such  a  thorough 
though  at  times  complicated  manner;  the  employment  of  so  many 
terms  that  one  will  find  much  trouble  in  learning  the  meaning  of,  such 
as  autism,  and  the  like,  unless  one  happens  to  have  read  certain  special 
books  or  articles;  the  absence  of  a  glossary  of  terms;  etc.  But  one 
cannot  have  too  much  fed  to  one  at  a  single  feast. 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  even  without  having  read  the  many  works 
that  Hall  refers  to  in  his  two  volumes,  one  feels  free  to  declare  that 
this  is  the  greatest  book  on  Jesus  Christ  that  has  ever  been  written. 
One  cannot  conceive  how  a  greater  one  can  be  written. 


192  Reviews 

If  you  want  to  know  more  about  what  Hall  has  to  say,  read  it  in 
his  two-volume  work. 

One  of  Hall's  pupils  owes  it  to  the  average  layman  to  abstract 
"Jesus,  the  Christ,  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,"  and  present  the  gist 
of  it  in  plain,  easily  understood  phraseology,  so  that  he  who  runs  may 
read  and  understand  and  be  convinced. 

May  Hall's  volume  be  followed  by  many  other  books  which  will 
discuss  not  only  Christianity,  but  religion  in  general,  from  the  same 
broad  standpoint.  Many  books  on  this  subject  have  appeared  in 
recent  years.  But  most  of  the  propaganda  work  lies  all  ahead.  We 
must  make  way  for  a  new  religion,  better  call  it  philosophy,  for  the 
mass  of  humanity.  It  is  the  building  up  of  such  a  philosophy,  instilled 
into  the  heart  of  man  from  his  earliest  years,  which,  if  based  on  sound 
views  and  principles,  will  lay  the  ground-work  for  a  new  world,  a  new 
order,  a  new  orientation.  Especially  is  this  needed  in  these  terrible 
and  troublous  times. 

Who  will  be  the  savior?  Our  present  religions  and  systems  of 
education  and  human  relationships  have  proven  a  failure  in  so  many 
•different  ways,  that  the  mass  of  humanity  are  in  need  of  a  new  world 
philosophy,  a  new  religion.  Where  are  the  scientists?  Cannot  they 
come  to  the  rescue? 

MEYER   SOLOMON. 

THE  PSYCHOANALYTIC  METHOD.  By  Dr.  Oskar  Pfister,  Pastor 
and  Seminary  Teacher  in  Zurich.  Authorized  translation  by  Dr. 
Charles  Rockwell  Payne.  New  York:  Moffat,  Yard  &  Company, 
1917.  Pp.  XVIII  and  580  with  index.  Price,  $4.00. 

This  is  one  of  the  flood  of  books  on  psychoanalysis  which  have 
recently  made  their  appearance  as  English  translations  from  the 
German. 

Both  Freud  and  G.  Stanley  Hall  contribute  short  introductions 
which  precede  the  preface  by  Pfister. 

One  can  say  of  this  book  that,  from  the  standpoint  of  systematic 
presentation,  it  is  the  best  of  the  many  books  on  psychoanalysis  that 
have  appeared  in  English. 

Following  a  chapter  on  the  definition  and  history  of  psycho- 
analysis, the  work  is  divided  into  two  parts,  which  deal  with  the  theory 
of  psychoanalysis  and  the  technique  of  psychoanalysis  respectively. 
The  unconscious,  repression,  fixation,  etc.  are  discussed  from  various 
angles. 

Chapters  II  and  III  show  the  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  terms  and 
the  different  concepts  of  "conscious,"  "unconscious,"  "emotion," 
"  will,  "etc. 


Reviews  193 

Many  illustrative  cases  are  scattered  through  the  book.  Some 
of  these  are  impressive,  others  less  so.  In  most  cases  the  full  history, 
as  we  should  want  it,  is  not  given.  The  facts  unearthed  and  presented 
by  the  author,  may  or  may  not,  in  most  of  these  cases,  have  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  causation  and  relief  of  the  symptoms.  In  many 
of  his  patients,  especially  those  complaining  of  somatic  symptoms, 
such  as  pelvic  pain,  and  the  like,  it  seems  that  the  author,  who  is  a 
pastor,  did  not  take  proper  precautions  to  have  competent  and  thorough 
medical  examinations  made  of  the  patients  in  order  to  exclude  local 
disease  with  certainty.  From  a  survey  of  the  cases  offered  as  evidence 
in  support  of  his  claims,  I  find  that  the  author,  like  many  other  psychoan- 
alysts, believes  that  all  kinds  of  peripheral  changes,  sensory  and  motor, 
of  a  voluntary  and  involuntary  nature,  affecting  locomotor  or  vegeta- 
tive systems,  may  be  present  as  symbols  of  unconscious  ideogenetic 
and  emotogenetic  origin.  His  conception  of  the  unconscious,  which 
is  the  conception  of  the  psychoanalytic  school,  is  not  that  of  a  complex 
of  conditioned  reflexes  of  all  kinds,  but  of  a  creative,  elaborative  power, 
ideational-like,  acting  at  the  moment  to  produce  all  sorts  of  manifesta- 
tions, even  those  of  the  most  physiological  and  peripheral  sort,  both 
transient  and  permanent.  Here,  too,  we  find  that  Pfister,  in  deciding 
in  favor  of  psychological  as  against  physiological  formulation  of  "the 
unconscious, "  fails  to  clearly  define  in  what  sense  he  employs  the  term 
"psychological."  His  terms  are  those  ordinarily  used  for  self-con- 
scious, ideational  activities. 

Although  the  author  differs  from  Freud  in  some  minor  details 
here  and  there,  it  seems  to  me  that  such  differences,  taken  en  masse, 
do  not  prevent  Pfister  from  really  being  practically  a  strictly  orthodox 
Freudian. 

He  shows  a  full  grasp  of  Freudian  literature,  which  he  quotes 
considerably. 

But  Pfister  does  not  solve  the  problems  and  does  not  clear  up  the 
complications  and  mysteries  that  have  been  pointed  out  time  and 
again  in  the  Freudian  theories. 

The  translation  by  Payne  has  been  sympathetically  rendered  in 
good  English. 

Speaking  frankly,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  would  have  an  unspeak- 
able state  of  affairs  in  this  already  long-suffering  and  unhappy  world 
if  all  pastors  adopted  the  extreme  and  dangerous  views  of  Pfister, 
especially  those  of  our  supposed  sexual  make-up. 

And  whether  Pfister  realizes  it  or  not,  psychoanalysis  has  become 
for  him  his  real  religion. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 


194  Reviews 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE,  ON  THE  THEORY  OF  ACTION 
AND  INTERACTION  OF  ENERGY.  By  Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  Sc.  D., 
Princeton,  etc.,  of  Columbia  University,  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey, 
and  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  New  York:  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.  1917.  Pp.  xxi,  322;  illustrations,  136.  27x16  c.  m. 
$3.00  net. 

In  certain  essential  respects  this  latest  volume  from  Professor 
Osborn's  "pen"  (or  typing-machine  or  dictagraph)  is  an  epoch-making 
publication  in  the  democratic  advancement  of  general  learning — 
words  easily  and  often  said  to  be  sure,  but  here,  at  least,  not  lightly. 
For  the  psychologist  who  reads  it  comprehendingly  it  must  have 
several  startling  and  suggestive,  useful  convictions;  to  the  average 
anthropologist  it  must  be  almost  like  an  indispensable  preliminary 
text  book;  to  the  untechnical  but  intelligent  lawyer  and  business  man 
and  school-ma'm  and  physician  whether  in  war- work  or  "safe"  at 
home,  it  must  be  one  of  the  absorbingly  interesting  biologic  volumes 
of  a  lifetime,  an  earnest  of  the  vital  clutch  which  all  science  worth  the 
cost  of  its  publication  even,  may  have  on  the  unscientific  human  brain 
and  heart.  And  clutch  on  the  heart  this  volume  has,  as  well  as  on  the 
less  plastic  neopallium!  It  lends  its  reader  a  suggestion  of  rest  and 
fixation  in  an  evanescent  and  worrisome  life,  orienting  him;  it  lends  him 
a  joyous  peep,  and  more,  or  pretends  to  do  so,  into  his  real  brute  nature, 
into  the  certain  depths  of  the  everlasting  Whence?,  the  human  query 
only  less  incessant  and  insistent  than  the  more  certainly  soluble  Whith- 
er? 

Taking  it  "at  its  face,"  without  search  into  the  cosmology  or  into 
the  technical  vertebrate  paleontology  which  it  throws  so  interestingly 
on  the  shadow-screen,  this  book  is  as  important  for  the  elementary 
technical  student  of  biology  as  it  is  to  the  always  eager  Public,  keen 
for  knowledge  when  they  can  have  it  fed  to  them  in  varied  and  always 
pleasant  tastes.  It  may  prove  a  well-integrated  philosophy  of  biologic 
life,  even,  as  satisfying  to  the  psychologist  searching  ever  for  con- 
tinuity, as  to  the  physicist  whose  concept  "energy"  continually  broad- 
ens and  deepens  and  aspires  into  the  "monism"  which  must  remain 
the  goal  of  both  of  these  opposed  yet  complementary  modes  of  thought. 
Chemistry  here  too  gets  new  sanction,  as  in  the  works  of  Mathews  and 
of  Henderson  (from  which  Doctor  Osborn  quotes),  a  sanction  which 
tends  to  make  the  old-time  words  materialism  and  idealism  but  as 
aspects  of  a  Fechner's  arc.  (Any  internecine  mediaeval  contradiction 
between  them  seems  now  as  impossible  as  the  survival  of  that  Kaiser- 
like  king  of  Earth's  destructive  mechanisms,  the  carnivorous  Tyranno- 
saurus  rex  Osborn.)  The  book  appeals,  that's  all,  to  all  sorts  and 


Reviews  195 

conditions  of  intelligent  women  and  men, — while  to  the  children  the 
very  faery  stories  of  the  bed-time  fire-glow  must  seem  outdone.  And 
how  the  "smart"  Sunday-newspaper  artists  might  double  their 
salaries ! 

The  publishers'  advertisement  tells  the  truth  as  advertisements 
do  more  and  more  often:  " From  latest  discoveries  Prof essor  Osboni 
pictures  the  lifeless  earth  and  presents  a  new  conception  of  the 
origin  and  early  evolution  of  living  forms  in  terms  of  energy.  In  the 
spirit  of  modern  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology,  this  is  a  reply  to 
Arrhenius'  derivation  oi  life  from  space,  to  Darwin's  doctrine  of  chance, 
to  Bergson's  elan  vital  or  internal  guiding  force.  It  gives  evolutionary 
thought  another  direction.  The  wonderful  and  beautiful  succession 
of  life  from  its  dawn  to  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  man  is  richly 
illustrated  and  philosophically  interpreted." 

Morphology,  as  tectology  at  least,  here  gets  a  woful,  hard  knock; 
perhaps  it  will  help  to  awaken  with  its  modernism  gross  anatomy  and 
morphology  out  of  their  age-long  doze.  Here  it  is  shown  that  the 
vital  guiding  thread  is  kinesis,  dynamism,  change,  and  not  formed 
"matter",  form,  vaguely  conceived  as  more  or  less  fixed.  Old  Bishop 
Wilberforce  himself,  (whom  Huxley  argumentatively  slew)  would 
almost  be  convinced  that  the  interesting  monkey  was  (as  no  one  be- 
lieves) a  most  proper  and  even  a  most  orthodox  forebear. 

The  book  has  an  essential  introduction,  eight  chapters,  and  an 
important  appendix.  The  titles  of  the  former  run  thus,  divided  up 
under  two  parts,  "the  adaptation  of  energy"  and  "the  evolution  of 
animal  form:"  I,  Preparation  of  the  Earth  for  life;  II,  The  sun  and 
its  physicochemical  origins  of  life;  III,  Energy-evolution  of  bacteria, 
algae,  and  plants;  IV,  The  origins  of  animal  life  and  evolution  of  the 
invertebrates;  V,  Visible  and  invisible  evolution  of  the  vertebrates; 
VI,  Evolution  of  body -form  in  the  fishes  and  amphibians;  VII,  Form- 
evolution  of  the  reptiles  and  birds;  and,  VIII,  Evolution  of  the  mam- 
mals. "  The  appendix  suggests  in  seven  notes  some  technical  but  very 
important  new  matters  from  A.  P.  Mathews,  Loeb,  Gies,  Ostwald, 
etc. ;  and  gives  a  taxonomic  table  of  animals.  An  up-to-date  bibliog- 
raphy and  a  fairly  full  index  both  of  authors  and  of  topics  complete 
the  book. 

It  is  hinted  that  a  complementary  volume  will  appear  (if  the 
fashionable  danse  macaber  does  not  prevent)  which  will  carry  the 
argument  into  human  life  more  explicitly  than  is  done  in  the  present 
work;  and  in  treatment  quite  unlike  (we  may  well  suppose)  that  of 
"Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age,"  of  "before  the  War." 

In  the  trite  philosophy  of  the  circus  side-show  hawker,  this  popu- 


196  Reviews 

larly  attractive  treatise  has  to  be  seen  to  be  appreciated.  But  there 
is  scarcely  a  reader  of  the  JOURNAL  who  would  not  find  his  time's 
worth,  as  well  as  the  worth  of  his  money,  in  the  reading  and  the  owning 
of  this  book.  It  is  even  more  than  it  seems;  it  is  like  a  presaging  lecture 
made  delightful  with  fun  and  good  humor — though  the  dull  and  super- 
ficial mind  forever  yet  confuses  good  humor  with  superficiality  and 
snobbery  with  profundity  and  real  dignity.  The  inherent  interest  of 
the  subject  makes  the  book  delightful,  but  no  one  with  even  a  tinge  of 
insight  will  fail  to  see  it  as  a  potentially  important  contribution  to  the 
philosophy  of  Life,  of  Earth's  stupendous  ventures,  of  man's  whence? 
and  whither?  It  is  Huxley  outdone  in  "human"  interest  at  least. 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  thus  frankly  praising  the  book  (and  in  trying 
to  suggest  its  real  meaning  rather  than  its  contents  in  detail)  because 
I  think  it  a  book  of  the  years  long  to  come  in  the  history  of  the  popu- 
larization of  science,  the  most  certain  and  shortest  road  to  scientific 
evolution.  If  opinions  differ  as  to  its  radicalism,  its  cold  scientific 
"certainty,"  the  opinions  will  be  for  a  time  at  least  only  opinions; 
and  an  "inspiring"  book  is  not  necessarily  able  to  inspire  a  mere 
reviewer.  But  every  reader  must  finish  it  enthused. 

GEORGE  V.   N.   DEARBORN. 
Cambridge 


BY    EMMA   WHEAT    GILLMORE,   M.    D. 

CHAIRMAN  COMMITTEE  OF  WOMEN  PHYSICIANS  GENERAL  MEDICAL  BOARD, 
COUNCIL  OF  NATIONAL  DEFEN  8 

The  same  year  that  gold  was  discovered  in  California,  a  lone 
pioneer  received  the  first  medical  diploma  which  the  United 
States  had  issued  to  a  woman.  Other  colleges  shortly  followed 
the  example  of  the  one  which  had  opened  its  doors  to  Elizabeth 
Blackwell,  and  today  over  fifty  co-educational  medical  schools 
admit  women  upon  the  same  terms  as  men. 

There  are  more  than  25,000  American  physicians  in  military 
service  at  this  writing,  and  the  Council  of  National  Defense  is 
undertaking,  through  the  Volunteer  Medical  Service  Corps— 
an  organization  which  has  President  Wilson's  approval — ,  the 
task  of  classifying  the  qualifications  of  ninety  thousand  more. 
Of  these,  about  six  thousand  are  women,  less  than  one-third  of 
whom  have  registered  with  the  General  Medical  Board. 

Women  of  the  profession,  unless  our  qualifications  are  stan- 
dardized and  on  file,  can  you  not  see  that  we  are  an  unknown 
quality  and  quantity  as  far  as  the  Government  is  concerned? 
In  spite  of  the  overwhelming  difference  in  number — 6,000  women 
and  over  100,000  men — and  regardless  of  the  fact  that  over 
twenty -two  centuries  have  passed  since  Hippocrates  wrote  the 
immortal  Oath  and  only  sixty-nine  years  have  elapsed  since 
women  entered  the  medical  profession,  the  Volunteer  Medical 
Service  Corps  has  invited  them  to  membership  with  the  same 
impartial  cordiality  as  it  has  the  men. 

During  the  last  week  in  August  application  blanks  for  the 
Volunteer  Medical  Service  Corps  were  mailed  in  franked  envel- 
opes to  all  legally  qualified  men  and  women  in  the  United  States 
who  were  not  already  in  Government  Service.  Presumably  a 
number  of  women  have  been  overlooked  because  many  of  them 
are  not  members  of  medical  societies,  but  this  will  speedily  be 
corrected  if  a  notification  of  the  omission  is  sent  to  the  Volunteer 
Medical  Service  Corps,  Council  of  National  Defense,  Washington 
D.  C. 

Meanwhile,  medical  women  who  possess  a  vision  will  see  in 

197 


198  Reviews 

the  Volunteer  Medical  Service  Corps  an  incomparable  method 
of  organization  which  will  register  their  qualifications  and  place 
them  in  an  identical  coded  class  system  with  men  physicians. 
This  Corps  is  in  reality  an  ideal  procedure  for  mobilizing  the 
military  forces  of  our  country  for  selective  medical  war  service. 
Incidentally  it  will  place  loyal  and  patriotic  medical  women  by 
the  side  of  those  men  who  are  willing  to  give  themselves.  Even 
though  all  of  them  are  not  elected  to  membership,  their  names 
will  be  on  file  with  the  Government  as  willing  to  serve  as  far  as 
their  strength  and  capability  will  permit,  and  no  one  can  point 
a  finger  at  them  and  say  "slacker." 

Will  a  page  be  turned  over  in  the  history  of  American  Medi- 
cal Women  upon  which  will  be  written  the  qualifications  of  6,000 
of  them,  matching  that  group  of  English  physicians  known  as 
the  Scottish  Women's  Hospitals,  which  was  so  perfectly  organ- 
ized that  they  were  able  to  hand  over  to  their  Government  a 
constructively  organized  body  of  professional  women  for  military 
service?  Or  shall  we  continue,  as  we  have  done  in  sporadic 
groups  for  the  past  69  years,  to  demand  recognition  of  men  and 
at  the  same  time  neglect  to  unanimously  affiliate  with  them  in 
recognized  medical  societies,  and  to  withhold  our  influence  both 
with  pen  and  vote  when  medico-social  and  medico-political  and 
medico-scientific  issues  are  at  stake  which  shake  the  very  founda- 
tion upon  which  medicine  rests? 

The  body  politic  of  the  civilized  world  holds  a  prominent 
place  for  the  profession  of  medicine  in  the  near  future.  Are  we 
to  have  a  hand  in  shaping  it?  The  Volunteer  Medical  Service 
Corps  is  big  with  promise  for  women  of  the  medical  profession 
if  we  take  advantage  of  it  to  put  ourselves  on  record.  The 
response  which  the  Council  of  National  Defense  receives  from 
women  who  apply  for  membership  will  tell  the  tale  as  to  whether 
they  have  or  have  not  grasped  and  taken  advantage  of  the  un- 
precedented opportunity  which  this  world's  war  for  Democracy 
has  opened  up  for  them  through  the  medium  of  the  Volunteer 
Medical  Service  Corps. 


NOTE 

The  conclusion  of  THE  ILLUSION  OF  LEVITATTON,  by  Lydiard 
H.  Horton,  will  appear  in  the  October  issue  of  THE-  JOURNAL. 


TABLE  V 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  VARIATION  TOTALS  FOR  DIFFERENT  DIAGNOSES 


v.  T. 

0 
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22 
23 
24 
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26 
27  1  1  1 

No.  of 
cases.   503  146  60  380  41  12  19  54  43  21  15   8  65   218 


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17 

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10 

5 

1 

3 

17 

2 

1 

3 

5 

1 

1 

5 

16 

1 

4 

5 

14 

1 

1 

1 

3 

7 

2 

2 

7 

3 

3 

3 

10 

2 

1 

2 

3 

1 

4 

1 

2 

2 

2 

6 

2 

1 

1 

1 

4 

1 

2 

2 

2 

1 

6 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

ERRATA 

The  author  has  called  attention  to  several  errors  in  the 
printing  of  the  article  "Point  Scale  Examinations  on  the  High 
Grade  Feeble  Minded  and  the  Insane"  published  on  page  77. of 
the  June  number  of  the  Journal.  We  give  below  a  list  of  correc- 
tions, with  the  request  that  subscribers  alter  their  original  copies 
to  correspond  thereto. 

We  have  also  reprinted,  at  the  request  of  the  author,  Table 
V  in  order  that  this  table  may  appear  in  its  entirety  upon  one 
page. 

Page  78.      Lines   13,   14,  15:  read  after  16,  24,  16  and  24. 
Page  85.       Fourth  line  from  bottom  of  page:  for  "  (p.  00)  " 

read  "(p.  84)." 

Page  87.       Lines  9  and  10:  read    after  6.9  and  6.4 
Page  89.       In  Test  5,  score  (38-45),  Test  9,  score  (38-45), 

Test  10,  score  (25-30),  Test  10,  score  (31-37)  the 

figure  2  should  not  be  in  italics;  Test  11,  score 

(46-52)  for  "4"  read  "3". 

At  the  bottom  of  the  page,  add  a  row  to  the 

table  reading: 

17  0  (100)  t)  (100)  0  (83)  0  (70)  0,  1  (73) 
Page  90.       For  "76-7"  read  "76-79." 
Page  96.       Number  Plates:  Upper  "Plate  1   (a),"  Lower 

"  Plate  1  (b)." 

Page  112.     For  "Test  No.  (b) "  read  "Test  No.  7  (b) " 
Appendix  B.     It  was  not  the  intention  of  the  writer,  of 
course,  to  make  it  appear  that  the  discussion 
of   one   test   belonged   under   the    "General 
Rules"  for  grading  the  preceding  test. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

VOL.  XIII  OCTOBER,  1918  NUMBER  4 

ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


E.    E.    SOUTHARD 

• 

IT  is  safe  to  say  that  Ego  and  Alter  are  about  as  far  away 
from  each  other  as  ever.     The  Socii1' 2  are  not  thoroughly 
explained  on  Consciousness  of  Kind.3     There  is  much  that 
points  to  the  downfall  of  the  Economic  Man  or  of  any 
other   Humpty-Dumpty   type   built   more    on   identities   than 
differences.     The  whole  brood  of  the  humdrummers  who  take 
men  and  women  as  sufficiently  alike  for  all  practical  purposes  is 
a  brood  bound  to  degenerate  and  die  out.     I  have  even  read  in  a 
book  on   Guild-socialism4  that  provision  would  be    made  for 
geniuses  in  the  regenerate  world,  though  I  must  say  there  was 
less  to  the  point  concerning  the  insane  and  the  feeble-minded. 
A  little  more  attention  to  Ego  and  Alter,  perhaps  more  especially 
to  Ego  and  its  types  (e.  g.  by  thinking  one's  own  selves  over  in  the 
memory   procession),    would   do   both   the   capitalist   and   the 
socialist  humdrummers  a  vast  lot  of  good. 

The  immediate  object  of  this  paper  is  hardly  to  contribute 
much  to  the  large  question  of  human  interest,  the  interest  the 
Socii  are  found  to  take  in  each  other  and  then  translate  into 
action.  I  wish  to  borrow  from  aesthetics  and  psychology  a  term 
for  this  human  interest,  a  term  coined,  I  believe,  by  Titchener^, 
viz.,  empathy.5  I  wish  to  study  our  relations  of  empathy  with 
the  pronounced  psychopaths,  hoping  to  gather  therefrom  some 
points  of  service  in  the  larger  matter  of  human  interest  in  the 
Fellow  in  general.  The  term  empathy,  happy  though  it  seems, 
is  not  at  all  the  real  issue.  The  term  itself  was  built  up  designed- 

Copyright  1919  by  Richard  Q.  Badger.     All  Rights  Reserved. 

199 


200   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

ly  on  the  analogy  of  the  term  sympathy.  I  seek  to  set  forth 
what  I  conceive  to  be  implicitly  recognized  by  all,  viz.,  that 
there  is  an  attitude  of  empathy  quite  distinct  from  the  attitude 
of  sympathy.  The  world  takes,  in  criminals,  or  in  races  or 
nations,  a  human  interest  often  termed  sympathy  but  actually 
of  another  sort. 

The  existence  of  this  human  interest  or  empathy  depends  on 
how, far  we  read  or  feel  ourselves  into  the  person,  group,  nation, 
or  race.  I  say  "read  or  feel  into"  instead  of  "in",  so  that  by 
doing  a  little  violence  to  the  idiom  the  interior  aspect  of  the 
process  may  be  stressed.  This  process  is  one  of  empathy,  not 
always  of  sympathy.  Sympathy  itself  is  of  course  an  ancient 
and  beautiful  term.  Sympathy  meant  feeling  with  another, 
like  feeling, — but  the  feeling  with  did  not  always  mean  a  transla- 
tion into,  nor  did  likeness  go  so  far  as  identification.  In  fact  the 
sympathetic  person  was  often  chargeable  with  being  a  bit  super- 
ior to  the  person  sympathized  with.  Sympathetic,  the  adjective, 
seems  to  have  built  up — so  philologists  say — on  the  analogy  of 
pathetic:  that  is,  sympathetic  ought  to  be  sympathic,  as  indeed  in 
some  languages  it  becomes.  And  a  little  of  the  pathos  of  pathetic 
has  usually  clung  to  sympathetic.  As  for  empathy,  however,  the 
adjective  empathic  seems  to  be  more  suitable  than  empathetic, 
if  only  because  the  latter  would  even  more  damagingly  suggest 
pathos. 

Sympathies  and  empathies  may  occur  together  or  apart. 
Perhaps  more  often  they  occur  apart.  We  sympathize,  we  say, 
with  the  sorrows  of  Belgium.  But  it  is  a  question  how  thorough- 
ly we  empathize  with  the  Belgians,  how  thoroughly  we  can,  here 
and  now  in  America,  read  or  feel  ourselves  into  their  plight. 
We  have  not  memories  enough  for  that  level  of  imagination. 
Emotional  attitude  is  perhaps  the  most  important  part  of 
sympathy.  >  Quite  another  thing  is  that  effort  of  imagination 
and  that  assumption  of  a  conscious  attitude  which  are  required 
in  empathy. 

We  do  not  sympathize  with  the  considerable  sorrows  of 
Germany,  say  of  the  Kaiser.  Can  we  not  empathize  in  their 
situation?  Can  we  not  readily  hark  back  to  perhaps  our  selfish 
childhood  (or  to  the  selfish  childhood  or  youth  of  some  other) 
and  read  ourselves  (or  at  one  remove)  into  the  Teutonic  situation? 

Germany  says  she  is  defending  herself.  Do  we  sympathize 
with  her?  Yes,  perhaps,  whether  we  think  she  is  defending  her- 
self or  whether  we  think  she  merely  thinks  she  is  defending  her- 


E.  E.  Southard  201 


self.  The  sympathy  is  an  emotional  attitude  which  we  do  or  do 
not  assume.  How  many  Americans  can  really  empathize  the 
Teutonic  defense-reaction?  How  many  can  read  or  feel  them- 
selves into  that  felt  passivity?  Yet,  if  diplomats  do  not,  the 
peace  negotiations  will  be  for  long  at  cross  purposes. 

But  what  sort  of  process  is  empathy?  It  is  obviously  not 
a  mere  sensation  or  a  mere  pleasure-pain  feeling.  Historically, 
the  idea  took  definite  shape  in  connection  with  certain  illusions 
of  space  perception  and  certain  aesthetic  reactions.  It  can 
hardly  be  a  mere  process  of  association,  except  in  some  very 
broad  sense  of  that  term.  Empathy  must  clearly  bear  some 
relation  to  one's  power  of  imagination.  Is  it  emotional?  If 
we  can  realize  ourselves  in  other  persons,  races,  or  even  animals 
or  inanimate  objects,  clearly  a  good  dieal  of  kinesthetic  "set" 
will  be  brought  about,  and  there  may  well  be  emotion  set  free 
or  modified. 

It  is  plainly  desirable  at  this  point  to  look  more  narrowly 
into  the  usage  and  value  of  the  idea,  in  which  I  shall  follow 
Titchener.  Thereafter,  I  shall  try  to  state  what  different 
empathies  the  psychopathic  types  of  person  make  in  us,  largely 
as  a  practical  matter  of  diagnostic  aid,  but  with  an  eye  on  more 
general  implications. 

Titchener's  first  reference  to  empathy  is  to  its  possibly 
explaining  certain  spatial  perceptive  illusions,  e.  g.  illusions  of 
the  Miiller-Lyer  type.  By  an  empathic  process  we  are  conceived 
to  read  ideas  into  the  figures.  "We  read  ourselves,  or  feel 
ourselves,  into  the  lines  of  the  figure."  "We  tend,  just  because 
we  are  human  beings,  to  humanise  the  forms  about  us;  a  column 
seems,  according  to  its  proportions,  to  stretch  up  easily  to  its 
load,  or  to  plant  itself  doggedly  under  a  too  heavy  pressure,— 
precisely  as  a  man  might  do."  With  respect  to  the  special 
problem  of  the  spatial  illusion-figures,  to  be  sure,  Titchener 
prefers  to  explain  them  chiefly  on  another  ground,  viz.,  that  of 
physiological  mechanism  expressed  in  eye-movements,  "tempt- 
ed" as  he  somewhat  ideologically  says,  to  continue  beyond  their 
proper  point  or  on  the  other  hand  "checked."  However,  the 
general  theory  of  spatial  illusions  may  stand,  empathy  in  the 
sense  of  the  reading-in  of  associated  ideas  (Einfiihlung  of  Lipps.6) 
is  at  least  a  subordinate  factor  in  most  instances,  and  the  general 
disposition  or  "cortical  set"  is  another  such  operative  though 
subordinate  factor. 

Empathy  is  however  far  more  than  a  subordinate  factor  in 


202   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

attitudes  taken  merely  to  space  perceptions  of  visual  nature. 
Empathy,  as  Titchener  more  generally  defines  it,  is  the  name 
given  to  "the  process  of  humanizing  objects,  of  reading  or  feeling 
ourselves  into  them."  Empathic  processes  are  prominent  in 
visual  imagination,  not  necessarily  as  primary  features,  but 
as  attendant,  supplementary,  interfusing  processes.7  One  of- 
Titchener's  observers  reported,  as  to  his  image  of  a  fish,  "coo/, 
pleasant  sensations  all  up  my  arms;  slippery  feeling  in  my  throat; 
coolness  in  my  eyes;  the  object  spreads  all  over  me  and  I  over  it; 
it  is  not  referred  to  me,  but  I  belong  to  it. "  This  fish-image  was  an 
"image  of  imagination,"  not  a  "  memory -image, "  to  use  Titchen- 
er's distinction.  The  fish-image  was  here  not  aroused  with  per- 
sonal reference  to  definite  fishing-excursions  of  the  past.  Set 
before  a  blank  wall,  the  observer  did  not  rove  with  his  eyes,  move 
restlessly,  and  strive  to  bring  up  filmy  and  vaporous  past  memo- 
ries, sometimes  losing  his  visual  imagery  altogether  and  filling  out 
the  gaps  by  assuming  fisherman's  movements  or  even  imitating 
the  motor  dodges  of  the  fish  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ob- 
server was  in  a  state  of  motor  quiescence,  fixated  the  fish  steadily 
on  the  blank  wall,  and  got  a  substantial,  three-dimensional, 
perhaps  appropriately  colored  object  in  imagination,  a  new, 
strange,  unremembered.  personally  detached,  imaginary  fish — 
to  which  were  added  the  empathic  associations  "spreads  over  me 
and  I  over  it, "  etc. 

The  imagined  fish,  thus  solid,  stable,  and  empathically 
supported,  now  stands  at  the  focus  of  consciousness.  Shortly 
all  sorts  of  meaning  may  enter  (the  fish  of  ^x^  or  Christian 
theology,  the  sacred  codfish  of  Massachusetts,  or  even  some 
reference  to  the  observer's  old  fisherman's  luck  of  some  past 
day);  but  all  these  meanings  and  references  are  aside  from  the 
image  and  represent  merely  a  bit  more  of  the  flow  of  conscious- 
ness. The  fish-image  may  even  start  a  train  of  feelings  of  bodily 
discomfort  and  leave  a  kinesthetic  sequel  quite  as  marked  as 
any  got  by  telling  a  true  fish-story.  But,  as  is  well  known,  true 
fish-stories  rarely  do  get  told,  so  mobile,  foamy,  and  unsubstan- 
tial are  the  memories  of  any  fisherman.  How  much  easier  it  is, 
even  if  you  are  a  poor  fisherman  or  no  fisherman  at  all,  to  sit 
down  and  build  an  immobile,  firm-fleshed,  and  solid  fish-image, 
the  perfect  basis  for  a  glorious  yarn. 

One  may  thus,  with  Titchener,  prefer  an  active  to  a  passive 
account  of  the  imaginative  consciousness.4  The  imaginer  plans 
moulds,  constructs,  works  up,  applies  skilled  labor — the  emotive 


E.  E.  Southard  203 


side  of  the  process  being  all  the  while  rather  vague  and  pretty 
much  a  matter  of  general  disposition.  Indeed  there  may  be, 
according  to  Titchener,  more  emotion  attached  to  the  varying 
success  or  failure  of  the  process  itself  (whether  one  is  achieving 
a  trout  or  a  hornpout,  though  this  is  not  Titchener's  example) 
than  any  emotion  intrinsically  related  to  the  fish-image  itself. 
And  "meanwhile,  also,  all  sorts  of  empathic  complexes  have 
formed  about  the  focal  processes,  vivifying  and  personalizing  the 
partial  products  of  the  constructive  effort" — an  effect  of  the 
constantly  integrative  tendency  of  consciousness  along  the 
specific  lines  of  the  imaginer's  disposition,  capacity,  and  ex- 
perience. 

But  empathy  is  not  merely  a  process  of  humanizing  visual 
perceptions  or  visual  imagery.  One  may  "empathize,"  if  this 
term  be  allowed,  in  respect  to  many  non-visual  matters. 
Titchener  himself  speaks  of  motor  empathy.5  This  was  in  the 
matter  of  so-called  "imageless  thought"  and  the  analysis  of 
James'  feelings  of  relation.  The  polemic  is  here  of  no  conse- 
quence. James  had  urged  that  "we  ought  to  say  a  feeling  of 
and,  a  feeling  of  if,  a  feeling  of  but,  and  a  feeling  of  by,  quite  as 
readily  as  we  say  a  feeling  of  blue  or  a  feeling  of  cold. "  Titchen- 
er thinks  not,  and  finds  that,  though  the  feelings  of  relation 
occur  and  can  be  got  out  in  isolation  and  at  full  strength,  they 
are  really  not  elementary  processes,  but  are  kinesthetic  com- 
plexes.6 They  are  perhaps  reduced,  degenerate,  vestigial  re- 
mains of  ancestral  motor  attitudes.7  According  to  Titchener, 
"in  the  author's  experience,  the  feelings  of  relation  are  never 
simple.  They  are  matters  of  motor  empathy;  the  relation  is 
acted  out,  though  in  imaginal  rather  than  in  sensory  terms." 
He  goes  on  to  say,  "sometimes  the  kinesthetic  images  are  ac- 
companied by  a  visual  image,  itself  usually  symbolic;  sometimes 
they  are  strongly  colored  by  pleasantness-unpleasantness."  It 
is  worth  while  pointing  out  that  neither  the  symbolic  nor  the 
emotional  components  here  are  necessary  parts  of  the  empathic 
process  taken  in  and  for  itself. 

Empathy,  it  is  plain,  is  more  intellectual  than  emotional. 
Though  empathy  readily  leads  the  sympathies,  it  may  well  stop 
at  a  coldly  rational  view  of  its  object,  pleasing  only  because  it 
fits  the  thinker's  general  views  and  habits.  The  human  interest 
of  sundry  newspaper  stories  is  often  a  matter  of  empathy  rather 
than  sympathy.  There  is  an  emotion,  the  sort  of  emotion, 
namely,  that  human  interest  and  will  imply,  but  this  need  not  be 


204    The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

connected  in  the  slightest  with  any  genuine  altruistic  feeling  or 
sympathy  for  the  heroine  or  villain  of  the  headlines.  But  is  not 
this  a  greatly  extended  interpretation  of  the  term  empathy? 
Should  it  not  be  limited  to  aesthetics  and  art  education,  in 
accordance  with  the  initial  usage  of  Einfuhlung  in  Lipps'  Raumes- . 
thetik  in  1897;  or  as  popularized  by  Miinsterberg  in  his  Principles 
of  Art  Education  in  1905?  Vernon  Lee  gives  in  a  small  book  the 
stock  examples  of  empathy,  devoting  no  less  than  two  chapters 
to  the  topic;  and  numerous  illustrations  are  given  by  Vernon 
Lee  and  Anstruther-Thomson.  But  the  idea  of  Einfuhlung  and 
the  ideas  involved  in  the  somewhat  greater  term  empathy  de- 
vised by  Titchener  are  clearly  not  to  be  impounded  for  art  alone. 

In  fact,  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  how  many  motives 
in  human  thought  are  implied  in  this  idea  of  reading  or  feeling 
oneself  into  an  object.  Clearly  animism  is  often  a  kind  of 
empathy,  in  which  one  perceives  in  other  men,  animals,  plants, 
natural  phenomena,  and  a  variety  of  objects  a  personalizing  or 
personifying  factor,  namely,  the  soul.  In  fact,  much  of  the  wide 
sweep  of  many  philosophical  doctrines  is  in  one  sense  based  on 
reading  oneself  into  portions  or  the  whole  of  the  world.  Hylo- 
zoism  has  its  empathic  suggestion.  The  Leibnitzian  monads 
are  not  innocent  of  the  charge.  The  whole  question  of  im- 
manence and  transcendence  has  some  bearing  on  the  point. 
Ancient  doctrines  of  magic,  of  fetishism,  of  nature  worship,  of 
shamanism  are  not  unrelated.  Anthropomorphism  and  sundry 
theological  problems  in  personality  lead  in  the  same  direction. 
Whether  in  more  modern  days  the  polemic  of  Avenarius  against 
all  introjection  theories  of  Berkeley  an  type  has  something  to  do 
with  the  empathy  problem,  I  may  leave  to  specialists  in  Aven- 
arius. The  interesting  term  eject,  contrived  by  Clifford  for  some 
one  else's  thought  in  the  terms  of  a  thinker's  unconsciousness, 
was  employed  by  Romanes,  and  we  may  safely  regard  this  eject 
idea  as  closely  related  to  our  topic. 

Still  more  modernly  speaking,  we  might  inquire  how  far 
empathy  is  related  with  the  concept  now  identified  with  the 
Freudians,  namely,  that  of  narcissism,  sometimes  abbreviated 
to  narcism.  This  term,  apparently  chosen  by  Nacke  upon  a 
suggestion  of  Havelock  Ellis,  and  considered  for  the  first  time 
elaborately  by  a  Freudian,  Rank,  in  1911  (also  by  Freud,  1914), 
is  a  conceived  state  or  phase  of  development  in  which  a  child 
regards  everything  in  relation  to  himself  and  not  as  related  with 
other  things.  According  to  the  Freudian  doctrine  of  successive 


E.  E.  Southard  205 


phases  of  development  in  human  life,  the  narcistic  phase  follows 
the  auto-erotic  phase  and  precedes  (perhaps  somewhat  fuses 
with)  the  homo-sexual  phase  that  antedates  the  so-called  achieve- 
ment of  heterosexuality.  But  what  is  narcism  if  not  a  species- 
of  reading  or  feeling  oneself  into  an  object  or  objects,  in  such  an 
intimate  fashion  that  the  surrounding  environment  is  virtually 
taken  as  a  part  of  the  self?  But  if  it  be  a  poor  sort  of  empathy 
which  leads  oneself  only  to  approve,  appreciate,  and  fraternize 
with  oneself,  then  the  higher  homosexual  phase  even  more 
certainly  looks  like  a  form  of  empathy,  a  form  in  which,  so  to 
say,  the  Narcissus  Ego  discovers  in  some  Alter  something  into 
which  he  reads,  feels,  or  empathizes  himself. 

So  much  may  serve  to  indicate  the  wealth  of  philosophical 
and  psychological  ideas  that  flow  in  and  about  this  notion  of 
empathy.  Though  the  concept  at  first  sight  seems  a  very 
special  concept  of  aesthetics  and  largely  dependent  upon  kines- 
thesia,  empathy  eventually  spins  a  web  of  relations  with  all 
sorts  of  philosophical  concepts  from  solipsism,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  pantheism  on  the  other.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  ideas; 
of  this  sort  stick  very  deeply  into  life,  and  that  the  whole  front 
that  we  present  in  our  practical  human  interests  (such  as  the 
time-honored  question  of  egoism  and  altruism)  depends  upon 
what  stand  we  take  on  this  matter  of  reading  oneself  into  another 
object. 

Man  has  the  defects  of  his  virtues  and,  by  virtue  of  becoming 
complex,  has  run  the  danger  of  a  variety  of  losses  and  twists 
that  lower  forms  of  life  escape.  By  becoming  complex  in 
physicochemical  structure,  the  brain  (to  say  nothing  of  all  the 
auxiliary  organs  and  tissues  that  supply  it  with  energy  in  one 
form  or  other)  has  run  the  danger  of  diseases  and  defects,  that 
we  psych opathologists  think  cause  a  large  minority,  if  not  a 
majority,  of  human  ills.  Suppose  it  could  be  shown  that  the 
Hohenzollern,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  Bolsheviki,  on  the  other, 
were  actually  victims  of  psychopathic  defect:  Would  it  not  profit 
the  world  to  gain  a  deeper  understanding  of  psychopathy  and  a 
quicker  capacity  for  catching  its  signs?  f  In  fact,  some  psycho* 
pathologists  believe  that  a  keener  sense  of  the  psychopathic  on 
the  part  of  the  world  will  do  away  with  many  of  the  evils  of  false 
leadership  that  now  drag  us  down.  1 

How  shall  the  world  gain  this  keener  sense  of  the  psycho- 
pathic in  its  members,  especially  in  its  leaders?  One  touch  of 
nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin,  and  the  empathic  index  foe 


206   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

these  kindred  fellows  is  clearly  high.  We  read  ourselves  or  feel 
ourselves  into  these  kindred  persons  on  the  basis  of  their  resem- 
blance to  us — their  touches  of  nature.  I  think,  therefore,  we 
should  initiate  researches  upon  this  matter  of  empathy  in  the 
psychopathic.  That  is,  we  ought  to  study,  for  eventual  transfer 
to  our  normal  fellows,  the  extent  to  which  we  can  read  or  feel 
ourselves  into  the  frankly  insane  or  psychopathic.  Analyse 
as  we  may  by  the  finest  technical  methods  the  different  parts  of 
the  mental  life,  and  enumerate  and  measure  as  we  may  these 
dements  and  compounds  in  the  psyche,  we  shall  not  readily  get 
=out  of  these  disjecta  membra  of  the  mind  any  standard  of  normal- 
ity for  our  patients.  In  fact,  the  psychologists  can  amply 
show,  in  the  regions  thus  far  subjected  to  the  experimental 
method,  that  the  psychopathic  patient  falls  in  his  reactions  well 
within  normal  curves  of  distribution.  Un  fact,  the  metric 
psychologist  too  often  believes  that  there  is  no  special  psycho- 
pathic problem  from  the  standpoint  of  psychology.  /This  view 
is  much  like  that  of  a  physiologist  who  might  conceive  that  all 
the  problems  of  pathology  could  be  solved  by  physiological 
methods.  Meantime,  the  sciences  of  pathology  and  of  psycho- 
pathology  exist  and  unfold. 

Should  we  not,  then,  make  some  use  of  the  off-hand  and  globar 
view  of  a  man  which  a  reasonably  normal  fellow  finds  himself 
to  possess?  When  the  psychiatrist  operates  medico-legally 
as  an  alienist  in  court,  he  is  quickly  made  aware  by  the  questions 
of  the  attorneys  on  both  sides,  by  the  attitude  of  the  jurymen, 
and  even  by  the  questions  and  rulings  of  the  court,  that  much 
depends  upon  the  reading  of  the  self  (by  the  attorneys,  jurymen, 
or  judges)  into  the  plaintiffs  and  defendants.  1  What  we  here  do 
practically,  ought  to  be  studied  theoretically,  j 

Upon  what  should  we  rely?  The  so-called  unconscious  of 
the  diagnostician,  or  his  conscious  reasoning  power?  Decidedly, 
so  far  as  possible,  the  latter.  Provided  that  a  man  has  a  right 
to  be  a  psychiatrist  at  all,  he  is  probably  able  to  empathize 
successfully, — make  a  Cliffordian  eject  of  his  fellowman,  homolo- 
gize  himself  with  this  man,  animate  him,  as  it  were,  with  his  own 
type  of  soul,  and  see  his  own  reflection  in  his  fellow  in  difficulties. 
Of  course,  there  are  plenty  of  perfectly  shrewd  and  keen  persons 
who  belong,  let  us  say,  more  in  surgery  than  in  psychiatry, — the 
men  who  analyse  and  perform  well,  but  who  are  not  supreme  in 
synthesis.  Rather  than  be  a  shrewd  but  non-synthetic  unit,  I 
personally  should  somewhat  prefer,  if  I  were  going  to  be  a 


E.  E.  Southard  207 


psychiatrist,  to  be  a  simple  type  of  person,  f  I  should  want  to 
be  a  rather  naive  person,  who  could  rely  upon  his  judgments  as 
uncolored  by  prejudice  (save  by  native  and  communal  pre- 
judices: ideals  of  the  tribe  or  of  the  market-place),  and  who 
could  make  a  judgment  of  his  fellow  man  pretty  well  in  accord- 
ance with  what  the  Freudians  conceal  in  their  term  Unconscious. 
In  short,  though  it  is  finer  to  be  synthetic  than  to  be  naive,  it 
may  prove  practically  better  to  be  na'ive  than  to  be  analytic. 
(Perhaps  this  digression  may  explain  the  odd  and  generally 
recognized  fact  that  psychiatry  is  divided  amongst  rather  naive 
and  inexplicably  simple  representatives  and  other  men  of  ex- 
traordinarily complex  and  ratiocinative  persons.  Accordingly, 
a  research  in  the  empathic  index  of  psychopathic  persons  as 
considered  by  psychiatrists  would  have  to  take  into  account  the 
psychiatrist  himself  and  possibly  load  the  results  of  the  research 
one  way  or  the  other  according  to  the  capacity  of  the  examiner.) 
I  How  far,  then,  can  we  and  do  we  read  ourselves  into  the 
insane  and  psychopathic?  (For  the  moment,  I  have  no  plan  of 
presenting  set  statistics  on  the  matter,  although  we  have  been 
collecting  some  data  at  the  Psychopathic  Hospital  along  the 
line.  The  point  of  this  paper  will,  on  the  other  hand,  be  to  bring 
out  the  general  nature  of  the  problem  by  considering  some  rather 
obvious  features  in  the  clinical  diagnosis  of  certain  genera  in  the 
great  groups  of  mental  disease. 

In  approaching  the  psychopathic,  the  psychiatrist  may  put 
the  question  about  empathy  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Following  is 
a  small  number  among  the  probably  infinite  variety  of  ways  in 
which  the  question  may  be  put: — 

How  far  can  you  read  or  feel  yourself  into  the  patient? 

Can  you  identify  yourself  with  the  patient? 

Disregarding  your  sympathies  and  abhorrences,  can  you 
empathize  with  the  patient? 

Reversing  the  "giftie"  proverbially  craved,  can  you  see 
the  "ither"  as  you  see  "yersel,"  i.  e.  can  you  see  yourself  acting 
under  some  circumstances  precisely  as  he  is  acting? 

Can  you  put  yourself  in  his  place? 

Conceding  nil  absolutely  alienum,  can  you  see  the  patient, 
not  as  similar  to  you  merely,  but  as  identical  with  you  in  your 
probable  reactions? 

Is  the  likeness  to  your  own  probable  reactions  specific 
rather  than  generic? 

Does  this  patient's  reaction  seem  intrinsically  human  or  is 
there  something  extrinsic  and  non -human  about  the  reaction? 


208   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

Is  this  "just  what  a  child  would  do?"  (if  so,  empathic  test 
positive,  because  each  of  us  readily  empathizes  with  a  child). 

Is  this  "the  touch  of  nature?"  (Empathic  test  positive, 
because  empathy  is  precisely  making  the  world  kin). 

Is  this  "just  what  anyone  would  do?"  (Empathic  test 
positive) . 

Is  this  "just  what  I  would  do  if  I  were  sick?"  (Empathic 
test  positive). 

Is  this  "just  what  I  would  do  if  I  were  crazy?"  (Empathic 
test  probably  positive,  because  most  of  us  early  contrive  an  idea 
how  it  would  be  to  be  crazy,  an  idea  usually  built  on  lines  of  our 
own,  i.  e.,  normal  experience). 

There  are  some  eleven  major  groups  of  mental  diseases, 
according  to  an  analysis  of  Psychopathic  Hospital  material 
recently  made.  I  shall  speak  with  injurious  brevity  concerning 
the  empathic  test  or  index  in  these  groups.  I  have  throughout 
spoken  of  the  empathic  index  because  I  feel  that  in  the  long  run 
degrees  of  empathy  would  be  established  for  many  diseases  and 
that  the  question  "How  far  can  one  empathize"  will  eventually 
be  susceptible  to  a  metric  or  at  all  events  an  ordinal  division. 
For  practical  purposes  in  our  work  so  far,  the  answers  concerning 
empathy  reduce  for  the  most  part  to  positive  and  negative.  I 
do  or  do  not  empathize  with  this  particular  patient.  Now  my 
view  is  that  the  empathic  test  is  an  indicator  or  index  of  diagno- 
sis between  certain  groups  of  mental  diseases  and  indeed  amongst 
the  sub-divisions  of  certain  groups. 

Adopting  for  convenience  the  diagnostic  order  above  re- 
ferred to,  I  would  proceed  to  Group  I,  the  Syphilopsychoses, 
or  mental  diseases  of  the  syphilitic  group.  By  and  large,  the 
psychiatrist  and  the  layman  will  empathize  positively  with  respect 
to  most  of  the  Syphilopsychoses.  So  far  as  the  meningitic,  vascul- 
ar and  gummatous  cases  are  concerned,  the  mental  symptoms  are 
usually  so  little  in  evidence  in  many  instances,  that  the  examiner 
treats  the  case  as  "sick"  in  the  sense  of  ordinary  somatic 
disease  and  he  sees  nothing  in  a  patient's  reactions  with  which 
he  cannot  fully  empathize. 

With  respect  to  general  paresis,  it  might  be  inquired  whether 
at  least  the  excited  and  grandiose  phase  of  general  paresis  would 
not  show  a  low  empathic  index.  The  demented  and  depressive 
types  of  paresis  do  not  excite  one's  feelings  of  a  lack  of  empathy. 
Dementia  may  not  excite  empathic  feelings  in  us  one  way  or 
another,  just  by  reason  of  the  lack  of  reaction.  The  abysmal 


E.  E.  Southard  209 


depth  of  depression  that  we  sometimes  find  in  the  paretic  remains 
nevertheless  often  quite  empathic  with  us  normal  beings.  The 
depression  is  merely  exceedingly  deep,  but  is  after  all,  just  such 
a  depression  as  one  might  feel. 

But  is  it  not  probable  that  the  grandiosity  of  the  excited 
paretic  shall  afford  instances  of  negative  empathy?  On  the 
whole,  I  do  not  find  that  my  own  empathy  is  as  a  rule  low  for 
this  paretic  megalomania.  Possibly  my  negative  judgment  is 
disarmed  by  the  facial  expression  and  whole  motor  attitude  of 
the  paretic,  which  is  likely  to  be  perfectly  consonant  with  the 
grandeur  felt,  also  I  perceive  that  the  paretic  is  physically  sick 
and  tremulous,  and  with  it  all  any  tendency  to  a  negative 
empathy  is  pooled  in  the  idea  that  after  all  this,  though  quite 
out  of  the  ordinary  range,  may  nevertheless  run  quite  in  the 
normal  direction  of  feelings  possible  to  the  normal  man  under 
certain  circumstances. 

With  respect  to  Group  II,  the  Feeblemindednesses  (or  what 
I  have  tried  to  term,  the  hypophrenoses) ,  I  find  the  empathic 
community  of  feeling  is  distinctly  present  in  the  majority  of  us. 
To  be  sure,  some  of  the  idiots  and  low  imbeciles  with  set  ex- 
pressions of  a  gargoyle  nature,  may  give  a  negative  empathy. 
It  may  be  that  throughout  the  hypophrenic  group,  our  sym- 
pathies are  so  much  in  play  that  it  is  difficult  to  make  a  cold- 
blooded rational  reaction,  such  as  the  true  empathic  decision 
must  be.  On  the  whole,  the  reactions  of  the  feebleminded,  both 
singly  and  in  groups,  strike  the  observer  as  of  the  happiest. 
Nothing  surprises  the  uninitiated  more  than  to  find  how  happy 
the  inside  of  a  school  for  feebleminded  is.  I  find  little  of  diag- 
nostic value  in  these  empathies. 

With  respect  to  the  epileptics,  Group  III.  I  conceive  that 
quite  another  situation  holds.  Epilepsy  is  the  morbus  sacer,  the 
disease  of  mystery.  W'hether  the  reaction  be  occasionally  one 
of  pathological  politeness  so  called,  or  whether  the  phase  of 
unreasonable  irritability  rubs  us  the  wrong  way,  whether  the 
unaccountable  occasional  amnesia  and  the  queer  optimism  of  the 
epileptic  contribute  to  the  result,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate. 
On  the  whole,  however,  the  epileptic  seems  to  me  to  rouse  not 
only  less  sympathy  than  the  feebleminded  person,  both  single 
and  en  masse,  but  it  also  proves  far  less  possible  for  the  normal 
man  to  read  himself  into  the  epileptic  in  the  empathic  manner. 
Possibly  this  is  a  somewhat  personal  reaction  on  my  own  part. 
Research  should  be  undertaken  in  the  matter.  .  Comparative 


210   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

studies  might  well  be  made  in  the  globar  reaction  of  empathy 
which  the  epileptic  makes  as  against  what  the  hypophrenic 
makes. 

With  respect  to  Group  IV,  the  group  of  mental  diseases  due 
to  alcohol,  drugs  and  poisons,  we  find  our  empathic  index,  as  a 
rule,  high.  Whereas  our  sympathies  may  carry  us  in  either 
direction,  our  empathy  is  pretty  nearly  positive.  On  the  whole, 
what  the  alcoholic  does  is  something  like  what  any  of  us  might 
do.  The  variation  of  experiences  of  the  alcoholic  is  such  that 
apparently  we  can  all  read  ourselves  into  the  alcoholic  situation 
somewhat.  Even  were  the  psychic  phenomena  of  alcoholism 
in  themselves  so  queer  and  outside  the  range  of  the  normal 
altogether,  yet  the  frequency  of  these  phenomena  would  give  the 
normal  man  a  high  empathy  for  the  alcoholic. 

The  morphinist,  on  the  other  hand,  is,  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  observe  him  in  a  small  experience,  far  less  the  object  both 
of  sympathy  and  far  less  positive  when  it  comes  to  the  empathic 
test.  There  are,  however,  within  the  group  of  the  pharmaco- 
psychoses  some  empathic  tests.  I  should  say  that  on  the  whole, 
the  victim  of  delirium  tremens  yielded  a  positive  empathic 
test  in  many  instances,  when  victims  of  the  companion  disease 
alcoholic  hallucinosis  yield  a  lower  index.  The  fact  that  in 
alcoholic  hallucinosis,  a  perfectly  clear  consciousness  gets  split 
with  hallucinatory  data  means  of  course  a  situation  that  seems 
far  less  consistent  than  the  situation  in  delirium  tremens.  The 
victim  of  delirium  tremens  is,  as  a  rule,  a  sick  looking  man,  with 
tremors,  flushing  and  sweating,  and  he  somehow  seems  to  us 
the  more  or  less  appropriate  vehicle  of  his  hallucinations.  But 
as  to  this  minor  distinction  of  sub-groups,  it  would  not  be  well 
to  speak  without  a  statistical  and  long-standing  analysis. 

With  respect  to  the  poison  cases,  nothing  special  need  be 
said. 

With  respect  to  Group  V,  the  mental  diseases  due  to  mani- 
fest focal  brain  disorder,  I  would  say  that  the  victims  of  this  sort 
of  mental  disease,  like  those  of  the  somatic  or  symptomatic 
group — Group  VI, — strike  us  as  on  the  whole  sick  persons.  They 
strike  us  as  not  unlike  what  we  ourselves  would  be  under  certain 
circumstances.  The  phenomena  strike  one  as  quasi-normal, 
judged  by  the  standard  of  diseases  in  general.  Even  phenomena 
of  the  vascular  (arteriosclerotic)  group,  with  their  physical 
accompaniments  of  paralysis,  for  example,  do  not  strike  us  as 
anything  but  quasi-normal. 


E.  E.  Southard  211 


With  respect  to  the  seventh  or  presenile-senile  group— 
Geriopsychoses — I  find  that  the  empathic  index  is  in  many  in- 
stances much  lower  than  I  should  naturally  think  that  it  might 
have  been.  The  fact  that  the  world,  as  it  were,  confronts  the 
oncoming  of  a  certain  dementia  as  a  necessary  feature  of  old  age 
ought  to  give  most  of  us  a  high  empathy  for  the  condition. 
Possibly  the  true  simple  dementias  due  to  plain  wasting  of 
brains  do  so  give  us  this  high  estimate  of  the  quasi-normality 
of  the  clinical  phenomena  shown.  However,  amongst  the  pre- 
senile  psychoses  with  their  curious  hypokinetics,  and  amongst 
some  of  the  presbyophrenias  with  their  strange  falsifications,  I 
find  numerous  instances  in  which  the  empathic  test  comes  out 
negative.  We  do  not  read  or  feel  ourselves  into  the  situation 
presented  by  these  patients,  whatever  may  be  our  sympathy  for 
the  obvious  fact  of  the  old  age. 

It  is  with  the  next  two  groups — the  eighth  and  ninth  groups 
of  schizophrenia  and  cyclothymia  respectively — that  the  differ- 
ential value  of  the  empathic  test,  according  to  my  prediction, 
will  be  found  greatest.  The  schizophrenic  (dementia  praecox) 
group  is  by  the  very  nature  of  the  dissociations,  which  are  very 
prominent  in  it  and  which  have  given  rise  to  Bleuler's  designa- 
tion (schizophrenia)  a  group  of  cases  in  which  the  phenomena 
are  by  hypothesis  strange.  Somewhat  less  strange  in  the  hebe- 
phrenic  subgroup  are  the  phenomena  of  catatonia  and  many  of 
the  paranoids  approach  the  apex  of  strangeness  amongst  the 
whole  range  of  psychopathic  symptoms.  The  dissociation, 
splitting,  the  schiztic  character  of  the  deliverances  of  the  victim 
of  dementia  praecox  give  one  an  impression  of  queerness  that 
probably  no  other  phenomena  can  give.  This  impression  is 
certainly  confirmed  by  the  details  of  analysis,  say  of  a  given 
set  of  actions  or  grimaces,  or  a  manuscript  letter,  but  what  we 
are  studying  here  is  not  so  much  the  results  of  analysis  as  the 
globar  and  total  effects  produced  by  the  patient. 

Without  here  bringing  statistical  data  to  bear  upon  the 
point,  I  venture  the  prediction  that  an  offhand  diagnosis  of 
dementia  praecox  can  often  be  made  (as  against  the  cyclothymic) 
from  the  general  impressions  conveyed  by  the  patient.  In  fact, 
the  phrase  "general  impression"  is  nothing  but  a  phrase  for  the 
basis  of  the  empathic  test.u  Many  a  tyro  in  psychiatry  has  won- 
dered how  his  hospital  superintendent,  with  his  brow  furrowed 
with  the  care  of  ways  and  means,  can  possibly  arrive  at  a  rapid 
diagnosis  of  good  or  evil  prognosis  in  a  man  whom  he  is  allowed 


214   The  Empathic  Index  in  the  Diagnosis  of  Mental  Diseases 

6.  Lipps.     Raumaesthetik  und  geometrisch-optische  Tauschun- 
gen,  1897. 

7.  Perky.     American  Journal  Psychology,  21,   1910,  p.   422ff. 

8.  Titchener.     Loc.  cit.,    119,  p.  422. 

9.  Loc.  cit.,   140,  p.  514. 

10.  Rowland.     The  Psychological  Experiences  connected  with 
the  Different  Parts  of  Speech.,  1907,  24  ff.  (Psychol.  Review,  Mon. 
Suppl.  32). 

11.  Washburn.     The  Term  "Feeling."     Jour.  Philos.,  Psychol., 
and  Sci.  Method,  3,  1906,  p.  63. 


FOREWORD   TO  "THE  OCCURRENCE   OF 
REVOLUTIONS" 

BY  BORIS  SIDIS 

THE  following  paper  is  timely  and  interesting  from  a 
scientific  point  of  view  in  general  and  from  a  psy- 
chological standpoint  in  particular.  The  present 
European  war  is  well  termed  a  world  war,  the  greatest 
war  of  nations  on  the  records  of  history,  a  war  shaking  social 
organizations  with  their  conflicting  instincts  and  passions  to  the 
very  foundations.  This  world  maelstrom  in  which  nations, 
large  and  small,  are  caught  unawares  is  fraught  with  events  no 
one  can  foresee,  with  consequences  no  contemporary  can  con- 
ceive. We  have  the  good  fortune  of  living  in  one  of  the  greatest 
epochs  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Revolutionary  changes  are 
taking  place  on  a  gigantic  scale  under  our  very  eyes  without  our 
realization  of  their  trend  and  significance.  We  are  in  the  midst 
of  the  mad  whirl  of  this  raging  world  hurricane  so  that  our  mental 
vision  is  obscured,  our  mind  is  paralyzed  by  the  very  magnitude 
of  the  furious  struggle  of  frenzied  social  and  psychic  forces.  No 
scientist,  no  statesman  can  forecast  any  of  the  consequences,  or 
estimate  the  meaning  of  the  profound  and  extensive  transforma- 
tions rapidly  taking  place  in  the  nature  of  society  and  man.. 
This  much  we  seem  to  feel  and  know,  that  humanity  is  in  labor 
with  big  events  which  are  far  beyond  our  ken,  that  society  is  in 
the  throes  of  a  new  social  order  the  character  or  even  the  outlines 
of  which  cannot  be  discerned  in  this  infernal  confusion  of  supreme 
struggle  of  social  elements  and  human  passions.  Man  and 
society  are  now  being  forged  into  new  forms,  hammered  by 
Vulcan  blows  of  war  and  revolt. 

If,  however,  things  appear  dark  as  to  the  outcome  of  this 
great  upheaval,  some  of  its  causes  may  be  within  our  grasp.  Any 
ray  of  light,  coming  from  whatever  quarter,  should  be  welcome. 
In  this  respect  the  present  contribution  may  add  its  mite  in 
regard  to  some  of  the  proximate  contributing  causes  of  one  of  the 
greatest  catastrophes  in  the  history  of  humanity.  The  merit  of 
this  contribution  is  that  it  advances  in  a  general,  though  tentative 
way,  one  of  the  contributory  causes  of  revolts  and  revolutions,, 
referring  them  to  fundamental  economical  conditions  and  psychic 

215 


216  Forward  to  "  The  Occurrence  of  Revolutions" 

states,  famine  and  cold,  fear  instinct  and  self-preservation, 
which  in  turn  are  traced  to  variations  of  one  central,  cosmic 
source,  to  variations  of  solar  energy. 

The  purely  psychological  aspect  may  be  stated  briefly  as 
follows:  When  social  forces  become  charged  with  revolutionary 
ferment  the  governments  may  under  ordinary  favorable  condi- 
tions keep  those  forces  in  check  by  means  of  force  exerted  on  the 
fear  instinct,  but  the  pangs  of  famine  and  the  distress  of  cold 
with  their  results  of  disease  and  epidemic  counteract  the  fear  of 
force,  arousing  the  fefer  instinct  of  death  and  the  fundamental 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  throwing  the  social  organism  into 
convulsions  of  riots,  revolts,  and  revolutions.  All  this  the  author 
traces  to  variations  of  the  central  source  of  all  terrestrial  energy, 
— to  variations  of  solar  activities. 

The  writer,  however,  warns  the  reader  not  to  take  this 
cosmic  source  as  the  sole  cause  of  revolutions,  but  only  as  one 
of  the  contributing  factors,  helping  to  turn  the  scale  when  social 
discontent  has  accumulated,  and  revolutionary  forces  are  being 
ripened  in  the  subconscious  depths  of  social  life.  The  cosmic 
factor  is  the  trigger  for  the  explosion  and  for  the  release  of  social, 
revolutionary  forces. 


A  REMARK  ON  THE  OCCURRENCE  OF 
REVOLUTIONS 

BY    WILLIAM    JAMES    SIDIS 

THE  general  subject  of  revolutions  is  an  interesting  one 
for  us  at  the  present  time.     We  have  all  been  reading 
in  the  newspapers  enough  contradictory  reports  about 
the  state  of  affairs  in  Russia  to  arouse  a  widespread 
interest  in  the  recent  revolution  in  Russia.     We  read  every  now 
and  then  of  a  new  outbreak  of  revolt  in  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Empire;  an  extensive  revolt  took  place  in  the  enemy  countries 
only  last  winter;  and  the  prospect,  brought  up  by  those  events, 
of  an  actual  revolution  in  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary,  in- 
volves the  possibility  of  a  complete  change  in  the  face  of   the 
present  war. 

Such  being  the  present  interest  in  the  subject,  I  venture  to 
make  a  few  remarks  concerning  the  time  when  revolts  and  re- 
volutions usually  take  place.  I  was  led  to  my  view  on  this 
subject  by  Taine's  explanation  of  the  French  Revolution  of 
1789  in  "Les  Origines  de  la  France  Contemporaine. "  I  take 
the  liberty  of  quoting  from  this  book:  "L'hiver  vint  et  fut  le  plus 
dur  qu'on  eut  vu  depuis  1709.  Des  le  printemps  de  1789,  la 
famine  etait  partout,  et,  de  mois  en  mois,  elle  croissait  comme 
une  eau  qui  monte—  ....  Plus  on  approchait  du  14 
juillet,  dit  un  temoin  oculaire,  plus  la  disette  augmentait.  .  .  . 
Pour  avoir  du  pain  de  chien,  le  people  doit  faire  queue  pendant 
des  heures  .  .  .  De  toutes  parts,  en  mars,  avril  et  mai, 
Pemeute  eclate. "  ("The  winter  came  and  was  the  severest  that 
had  been  since  1709.  From  the  spring  of  1789  on,  famine  was 
everywhere,  and,  from  month  to  month,  it  increased  like  a  rising 
flood  .  .  .  The  closer  one  came  to  July  14,  the  more  the 
famine  grew,  said  an  eye-witness  .  .  .  To  get  a  dog's 
bread,  the  people  must  stand  in  line  for  hours  .  .  .  From 
all  sides,  in  March,  April,  and  May,  riot  broke  loose.")  This 
suggests  that  the  real  cause  of  the  French  Revolution  coming 
in  the  summer  of  1789  was  not  the  dissolution  of  the  States- 
General,  but  rather  a  general  famine  accompanied  by  a  prevailing 
"inflammation  of  the  throat  and  intestinal  pain,"  caused  in  its 
turn  by  the  bad  bread  resulting  from  a  poor  crop  due  to 

217 


218  A  Remark  on  the  Occurrence  of  Revolutions 

summer  hail  and  a  cold  winter.  In  other  words,  the  French 
Revolution  took  place  in  1789  rather  than  four  or  five  years 
earlier  or  later,  because  the  winter  of  1788  was  extremely  cold. 

Taine's  explanation  of  the  French  Revolution  bears  a  re- 
markable resemblance  to  that  of  the  Russian  Revolution  con- 
tained in  the  first  official  bulletin  of  the  Petrograd  Soviet,  issued  " 
March  13,  1917.  This  bulletin  begins:  "The  old  regime  has  re- 
duced the  country  to  complete  ruin,  and  the  people  to  starvation. 
It  was  impossible  to  endure  it  further.  The  population  of  Petro- 
grad went  out  into  the  streets  to  demonstrate  their  discontent. 
They  were  met  with  bullets.  Instead  of  bread  the  imperial 
government  gave  the  people  a  stone. "  The  Russian  Revolution 
was,  according  to  this,  based  on  a  hunger  strike. 

This  suggests  the  idea  that  revolutions  and  revolts  in  general 
(a  revolt  being  a  revolution  that  has  not  quite  succeeded)  are 
connected  in  some  way  or  other  with  direct,  obvious,  physical 
discomfort,  especially  hunger,  and  possibly  lack  of  clothing  and 
fuel.  Not  that  I  wish  to  be  interpreted  as  saying  that  this  is  the 
cause  of  revolutions;  the  causes  are  quite  different.  A  match 
will  cause  an  explosion  in  a  powder  magazine,  but  not  in  a  tank 
of  water;  and  similarly  a  famine  will  bring  about  a  revolution 
in  a  society  where  the  underlying  conditions  are  such  as  to  favor 
the  spread  of  such  ideas  and  where  other  proper  circumstances 
are  present. 

Now,  all  such  matters  as  lack  of  nutrition  and  lack  of  heat 
are  dependent  in  great  degree  on  the  climate.  In  a  cold  country, 
a  severe  winter  is  directly  a  cause  of  physical  discomfort;  people 
freeze  in  such  weather.  Further,  the  early  frosts  preceding  a 
cold  winter  lessen  the  crop,  transportation  becomes  difficult, 
and  generally  a  famine  is  more  likely  to  result  in  such  a  year. 
In  a  warm  country,  a  similar  result  occurs  when  the  summer  is 
excessively  hot,  the  heat  parching  and  drying  the  crops  so 
that  food  is  scarce. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  Professor  Jevons  has 
advanced  a  meterological  theory  to  explain  the  periodicity  of 
industrial  crises.  Industrial  crises  usually  appear  about  once  in 
ten  years.  Jevons  ascribes  this  to  a  periodicity  in  the  climate, 
causing,  in  cases  of  cold  years,  poor  crops,  and  therefore  a  failure 
of  everything  dependent  on  the  crops,  including  the  banking 
system,  and  through  that,  the  whole  industrial  system.  This 
supposed  periodicity  in  the  crops,  which  would  directly  concern 
the  subject  of  this  article,  Jevons  ascribes  to  a  well-known 
periodicity  in  the  number  of  spots  on  the  sun. 


William  James  Sidis  219 


To  explain  this,  I  may  say  that  sun  spots  are  rifts  in  the 
surface  of  the  sun,  exposing  a  lower  layer.  This  lower  layer  gives 
less  light  and  heat  than  the  surface,  and  therefore,  the  more  spots 
there  are  on  the  sun,  the  less  heat  the  sun  will  give,  and  the  cooler 
will  be  the  climate.  Now,  astronomers  have  kept  records  of  the 
number  of  spots  on  the  sun  since  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, and  it  has  been  found  that  this  number  increases  and  de- 
creases in  a  period  of  eleven  years  approximately.  For  example, 
there  was  a  maximum  in  1905,  a  minimum  in  1911,  and  a  maxi- 
mum again  in  1916.  Jevons'  theory  was  that  the  maxima  of 
sun-spots  cause  cold  weather,  and,  therefore,  poor  crops,  result- 
ing in  industrial  crises.1 

The  essential  feature  in  this  theory  is  that  there  is  a  perio- 
dicity in  the  crops  corresponding  to  the  sun-spots,  this  period 
being  eleven  years.  This  suggests  the  following  question :  If  the 
weather  and  the  crops  follow  the  number  of  sun-spots,  might  we 
not  expect  the  occurrence  of  revolutions  also  to  be  connected 
with  the  sun-spots?  The  best  way  to  answer  this  is  by  com- 
paring the  dates  of  revolutions  with  the  dates  of  maxima  and 
minima  of  sun-spots. 

Since  the  record  of  sun-spots  was  kept  only  for  about  a 
century,  I  have  tried  to  select  only  revolutions  in  the  nineteenth 
and  twentieth  centuries,  since  previous  revolutions  cannot 
easily  be  compared  with  the  sun-spots.  I  have  included  in  my 
list  the  great  revolts  that  have  taken  place,  and  even  the  first 
Balkan  war,  which  somewhat  partook  of  the  nature  of  a  revolt. 
The  list  contains  33  revolts,  of  which  seventeen  occurred  nearer 
the  minimum  of  sun-spots  than  the  maximum,  and  sixteen 
occurred  nearer  the  maximum.  This  looks  unsatisfactory  at 
first  sight,  and  as  though  there  was  no  connection  at  all  between 
revolts  and  sun-spots.  But  if  we  take  separately  the  revolts 
that  occurred  near  the  maximum  of  sun-spots  and  those  that 
occurred  near  the  minimum,  different  results  are  obtained.2  For 

^or  various  reasons  which  I  need  not  here  specify,  I  do  not  agree  with  the  theory  of  in- 
dustrial crises  advanced  by  Jevons. 

2Table  of  sun-spot  variations: 

Maxima  Minima 

1816  1811 

1828  1822 

1839  1834 

1850  1845 

1861  1856 

1872  1867 

1894  1889 

1905  1900 

1916  1911 


220 


A  Remark  on  the  Occurrence  of  Revolutions 


example,  the  list  of  revolts  occurring  near  the  minima  of  sun- 
spots  : 

Minimum  of 


1811:  1809, 
1810, 
Minimum  of  1822:  1820, 


Minimum  of 
Minimum  of 


1821, 

1834:  1833, 
1856:  1857, 


Minimum  of 
Minimum  of 
Minimum  of 


1867:  1868, 
1889:  1889, 
1900:  1897, 
1898, 

Minimum  of  1911:  1910, 
1911, 
1911, 
1912, 


Tyrolese  revolt. 

Revolt  in  Mexico. 

Revolt  in  Spain. 

Revolt  in  Italy. 

Revolt  in  South  America. 

Revolution  in  Mexico. 

Carlist  revolt  in  Spain. 

Revolution  in  Mexico. 

Indian  Mutiny. 

Revolution  in  Japan. 

Brazilian  revolution. 

Cuban  revolution. 

Revolt  in  Spain. 

Portuguese  revolution. 

Mexican  revolution  (Madero's). 

Chinese  revolution. 

Balkan  Wars. 


Compare  these  with  the  revolts  taking  place  near  the  sun- 
spot  maxima,  as  follows: 


Maximum  of  1828:  1830, 
1831, 

Maximum  of  1850:  1848, 


1851, 

Maximum  of  1872:  1871, 

Maximum  of  1905 :  1905, 

Maximum  of  1916:  1917, 

1917, 

1916, 

1918, 


Revolution  in  France. 
Revolt  in  Poland. 
Belgian  Revolution. 
Insurrections  in  Austria. 
Revolt  in  Prussia. 
Chartist  uprising  in  England. 
Revolution  in  France. 
Tai-Ping  rebellion  in  China. 
Paris  Commune. 
Rebellion  in  Russia. 
Russian  Revolution. 
Rebellion  in  Germany. 
Dublin  "Sinn  Fein  "Insurrection 
Rebellion  in  Germany. 
Rebellion  in  Austria-Hungary. 
Uprising  in  Quebec. 


To  the  last  list  I  could  add  others;  as,  for  instance,  the 
French  Restoration  in  1815  (maximum  of  1816);  the  Italian  and 


William  James  Sidis  221 


Russian  uprisings  of  1914  (maximum  of  1916);  and  the  American 
Civil  War  (maximum  of  1861). 

If  we  examine  the  two  lists,  we  will  find  that  most  of  the 
revolts  in  the  first  list  occurred  in  warm  countries,  while  most  of 
the  revolts  in  the  second  list  occurred  in  cold  countries. 
There  are,  of  course,  a  few  exceptions,  but  the  exceptions  are 
surprisingly  few. 

This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there  is  actually  an  eleven- 
year  period  for  revolutions  corresponding  to  the  sun-spots.  In 
fact,  if  we  take  the  above  list  of  revolts  in  northern  countries, 
and  try  to  calculate  from  that  what  sort  of  period  they  could  be 
fitted  into  easiest,  the  method  of  least  squares  gives  us  as  that 
period:  11.07  years.  The  period  of  sun-spots  has  been  estimated 
at  11.1  years.  The  average  time  of  occurrence  would  be  given, 
for  example,  as  October  3,  1905;  May  27,  1850,  etc.  I  may  add 
that,  in  1905,  the  most  and  the  largest  sun-spots  were  visible  in 
September  and  October.  The  average  deviation  from  the  regular 
periodicity  is  1.78  years,  or  about  1  year  and  10  months.  If 
there  were  no  tendency  toward  periodicity,  the  average  deviation 
in  the  case  of  a  period  of  11  years  would  be  slightly  over  3  years. 

Similarly  with  the  other  revolts  on  the  list.  The  average 
period  is  found  in  the  same  way  to  be  about  11.2  years,  with  the 
average  time  of  occurrence  at  various  dates  down  to  April  8, 
1911.  The  last  sun-spot  minimum  was  in  1911.  Thus  it 
appears  that  revolts  and  revolutions  take  place  in  warm 
countries  near  the  minimum  of  sun-spots,  and  in  cold  countries 
near  the  maximum  of  sun-spots;  in  each  case,  when  the  weather 
is  such  as  to  tend  to  poor  crops. 

However,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  saying  that  the 
sun-spots  cause  revolutions.  An  appearance  of  sun-spots  could 
not,  by  itself,  produce  revolution  unless  other  circumstances  are 
already  such  as  to  cause  the  revolution.  All  such  revolutions 
would  occur  anyway,  even  without  the  sun-spot  variations; 
but  these  sun-spot  variations  superadd  natural  extremes  of 
climate,  causing  not  only  physical  discomfort  but  danger  to  life 
and  health,  thus  hastening  a  revolt  that  might  otherwise  have 
waited  for  a  very  long  time. 

A  government  not  based  on  the  will  of  the  people  must,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  rule  by  fear,  by  keeping  the  people  in  con- 
stant subjection;  and  the  people  will  be  kept  in  subjection  as 
long  as  they  can  be  made  to  fear.  The  tendency  of  such  oppres- 
sion is  to  exasperate  the  people  and  excite  them  to  desperate 


222  A  Remark  on  the  Occurrence  of  Revolutions 

measures,  especially  if  the  oppression  affects  their  means  of 
livelihood.  But  if  circumstances  suddenly  become  such  that 
many  lives,  or  the  health  of  many  people,  are  seriously  threatened 
as  by  extreme  cold,  famine,  &c.,  this  superadds  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  and  the  fear  is  entirely  counteracted.  The 
power  of  the  government  to  keep  the  people  in  subjection  is  weakened, 
and  the  rebellious  tendencies  come  to  the  foreground,  resulting  in 
open  revolt.  This  will  happen  especially,  if  there  is  a  poor  crop; 
and  this  probably  takes  place  every  eleven  years,  in  accordance  with 
the  sun-spot  variations. 

In  order  to  have  a  revolution  at  the  proper  time  in  the  sun- 
'spot  cycle,  the  revolutionary  tendency  must  be  there  already. 
This  alone  would  produce  rebellion,  if  left  to  itself  for  maybe  a 
generation  or  more ;  but  the  sun-spot  cycle  always  comes  in  and 
hastens  it,  so  that  a  rebellion  would  usually  occur  at  a  sun-spot 
maximum  in  colder  countries,  and  at  a  sun-spot  minimum  in 
warmer  countries. 

This  rule  would,  therefore,  apply  only  to  the  date  of  the 
beginning  of  a  revolt;  therefore  all  revolts  included  in  my  list 
were  dated  from  the  time  of  the  outbreak,  and  not  of  the  cul- 
jnination. 

To  illustrate  the  sun-spot  periods  from  recent  history.  The 
recent  sun-spot  variations  have  been:  1900,  minimum;  1905, 
maximum;  1911,  minimum;  1916,  maximum.  Allowing  a 
variation  of  three  years  in  some  cases  from  the  exact  date  of  the 
maximum  or  minimum,  as  the  case  may  be,  we  will  start  with 
three  years  before  the  minimum  of  1900,  that  is,  1897.  At  this 
•time  we  may  expect  revolts  to  take  place  in  warm  countries,  and 
this  sort  of  period  lasts  till  1903.  After  a  hot  summer,  revolt 
broke  out  in  Cuba  in  the  fall  of  1897.  The  proximity  of  Cuba 
to  the  United  States  brought  about  American  intervention  in 
the  shape  of  the  Spanish- American  War  of  1898.  The  Philippine 
Islands,  which  were  annexed  by  United  States,  revolted  in  1902. 
Even  in  1903,  revolt  broke  out  in  Panama.  But  now  we  are 
getting  to  the  period  of  revolt  for  the  northern  countries,  ap- 
proaching 1905.  In  1903  the  two  branches  of  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic party  of  Russia,  the  Bolsheviki  and  the  Mensheviki,  were 
organised,  revolts  were  threatening  in  1904,  and  the  Czar's 
government,  threatened  by  this,  proceeded  to  throw  its  people  in- 
to a  fight  against  Japan.  This  attempt  was  unsuccessful;  and  in 
1905,  at  the  time  of  the  sun-spot  maximum,  a  revolutionary 
organisation  was  established  in  Russia,  only  to  be  crushed.  The 


William  James  Sidis  223 


last  traces  of  this  revolt  were,  apparently,  stamped  out  in  West- 
ern Russia  by  the  aid  of  the  German  Government  in  1906. 

Now  the  scene  shifts  once  more  to  the  south.  We  now  see 
uprisings  in  Turkey  in  1908,  in  Portugal  in  1910,  in  China 
(starting  in  the  south)  in  1911;  Mexico  also  started  a  revolution 
in  1911,  the  year  of  the  sun-spot  minimum  and  of  an  unusually 
hot  summer.  In  1912  the  attempt  at  liberation  of  the  Balkans 
resulted  in  the  Balkan  wars. 

A  year  later,  the  end  of  1913,  was  the  time  midway  between 
the  minimum  and  maximum  of  sun-spots,  and  it  was  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  scene  would  suddenly  shift  back  to  the  northern 
countries.  In  the  spring  of  1914  a  general  strike  of  a  political 
nature  (demanding  abolition  of  the  three-class  system  of  voting) 
took  place  in  Belgium,  forcing  the  Belgian  government  to  appoint 
a  commission  to  revise  the  electoral  laws.  The  Socialists  in 
Prussia  made  similar  demands,  and,  when  met  with  the  usual 
Prussian  disdain,  replied  "Wir  werden  belgisch  reden"  (we  will 
talk  Belgian).  The  German  Socialists  began  to  show  openly 
their  contempt  for  the  Kaiser,3  and  the  prospect  of  a  German 
revolution  loomed  near.  The  Irish  were  arming.  There  was 
also  strong  tendency  toward  revolution  in  many  other  European 
nations. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  supposedly  suppressed  Russian  revolt 
suddenly  reappeared.  The  President  of  France  was  visiting 
Russia  when  the  revolt  broke  out,  and  everything  pointed  to  a 
general  European  uprising  unless  something  unusually  desperate 
was  done.  The  only  measure  in  sight  was  to  start  a  general 
European  war,  and  the  ruler  most  threatened,  the  German 
Kaiser  (for  the  revolt  in  Russia  was  getting  under  control), 
took  the  step. 

Even  that  was  a  doubtful  step.  Socialists  of  all  countries 
were  opposed  to  war,  and  they  were  very  strong  in  Germany  and 
in  the  neighboring  countries.  Would  they  fight?  It  was  known 
that  they  intended  to  convene  on  August  23,  to  decide  definitely 
what  to  do  in  case  of  war;  and  it  was  the  middle  of  July  before 
the  actual  magnitude  of  the  danger  of  revolution  became  obvious. 
War  had  to  be  started,  if  at  all,  within  a  month.  The  result  was, 
that  war  broke  out  with  hardly  any  preliminary  negotiations, 
many  24-hour  and  48-hour  ultimatums  were  sent,  and  the  war 
spread  over  almost  all  of  Europe  within  the  space  of  one  week. 

The  sun-spot  maximum,  however,  was  not  due  till  1916, 

JSee  Prince,  "The  Psychology  of  the  Kaiser." 


224  A  Remark  on  the  Occurrence  of  Revolutions 

and  1916  was  still  to  come.  In  1916,  there  was  a  revolt  in  Ire- 
land— a  small  beginning,  but  one  which  showed  that  the  revolu- 
tionary period  had  not  yet  ended.  In  1917,  at  the  end  of  a  long, 
cold  winter,  revolutionary  activity  in  Russia  revived  and  was 
finally  successful;  after  that,  Germany  and  Austria  were  shaken 
with  a  great  number  of  revolts.  There  being  about  a  year  more 
before  the  sun-spots  are  due  to  settle  down  to  their  average  activ- 
ity, the  revolutionary  period  in  northern  countries  is  not  yet  over, 
and  there  is  still  a  possibility,  if  not  a  probability,  of  an  Austro- 
German  revolution  within  the  coming  year  or  so. 

JThis  illustrates  the  relation  of  the  sun-spot  period  to  current 
events.  A  discontented  people  can  be  kept  cowed  by  fear,  by 
the  use  of  force,  as  a  general  rule,  in  normal  times ;  but  when  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  is  aroused  by  hunger,  cold,  &c.,  the 
people  are  much  more  ready  for  revolt,  and  a  previously  existing 
discontent  will  break  out  openly.  This  is  brought  about  in 
general  by  extremes  of  weather  and  failure  of  crops  which  take 
place  in  cold  countries  at  the  sun-spot  maximum,  and  in  warm 
countries  at  the  sun-spot  minimum. 


THE  PSYCHIATRIC  SOCIAL  WORKER* 

BY  ABRAHAM  MYERSON,  M.   D. 

CHIEF  MEDICAL  OFFICER,  OUT  PATIENT  DEPARTMENT  OF  PSYCHOPATHIC  HOSPITAL,  AND  ASSISTANT 
.    PROFESSOR  OF  NEUROLOGY,  TUFTS  MEDICAL  SCHOOL,  BOSTON,  MASS. 

IN  no  department  of  medicine  is  social  work  of  such  direct 
and  logical  importance  as  in  psychiatry.     Diagnosis,  the 
first  step  of  the  psychiatrist,  is  dependent  on  knowledge 
of  the  conduct  of  the  individual  in  the  community,  and 
very  frequently    such    knowledge  can  only  be  obtained   by  a 
trained,  unbiased  person,  i.  e.,  the  psychiatric  social  worker. 
Treatment  of  such   individuals  is  a  dual  process  and  consists 
of  an  adjustment  of  the  patient  to  society  while  at  the  same 
time,  society  must  make  (or  be  forced  to  make)  an  effort  to  ad- 
just itself  to  the  patient.     The  social  worker  acts,  then,  as  the 
sensory  and  motor  apparatus  of  the  physician,  while  at  the  same 
time  she  builds  up  an  independent  social  science  which,  in  the 
long  run,  helps  govern  the  knowledge  and  conduct  of  the  physi- 
cian. 

It  has  been  stated  that  treatment  in  many  of  the  psychiatric 
diseases  is  a  process  of  adjustment,  a  series  of  manoeuvres  which 
result  in  the  location  of  the  patient  in  his  proper  place  in  society. 
Before  going  on  to  consider  the  mechanism  of  adjustment,  it  is 
necessary  to  outline  briefly  the  field  of  psychiatry.  For  the 
most  striking  thing  in  the  development  of  the  field  of  mental 
disease  has  been  the  extension  of  the  subject  socially.  Inde- 
pendent of  its  closer  union  with  neurology,  has  been  its  affiliation 
with  criminology,  social  hygiene,  the  employment  phase  of 
economics,  the  distribution  of  charity  and  social  relief,  and 
lastly,  its  recognition  as  a  great  branch  of  medicine  by  the  mili- 
tary authorities,  so  that  the  neuro-psychiatrist  has  a  great  role 
both  in  the  selection  of  army  and  navy  personnelle,  and  in  the 
care  of  the  disabled.  It  is  these  social  affiliations  that  have 
made  the  psychiatric  social  worker  a  necessity.  Dependence 
upon  social  workers,  untrained  in  psychiatry,  however  well 
trained  otherwise,  necessitates  personal  training  by  the  psy- 
chiatrist, and  this  is  both  wasteful  of  time  and  necessarily  in- 
complete. 

*Being  Contributions  of  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Mental  Diseases,  Series  of  1918. 

225 


226  The  Psychiatric  Social  Worker 

We  may  divide  the  field  of  psychiatry,  in  so  far  as  social 
work  goes  with  the  following  branches: 

1.  The  psychoses  proper — the  frank  insanities.  Here 
the  role  of  the  social  worker  is  first  in  securing  good  data  which 
serve  in  the  making  of  the  diagnosis,  and  in  the  addition  of 
authentic  data  concerning  inheritance,  and  general  life  develop- 
ment of  the  insane.  I  emphatically  state  that  no  case  of  mental 
disease  can  be  thoroughly  "worked  up"  and  that  many  cases  are 
hopelessly  handled,,  without  data  so  obtained.  A  thorough 
follow-up  system  throws  light  on  cases  of  mental  disease  such  as 
could  not  be  brought  to  bear  otherwise,  and  the  statement  may 
safely  be  ventured  that  many  of  the  opinions  now  current  in 
psychiatry  will  need  radical  alteration  when  such  follow-up 
systems  have  been  used  for  a  few  years. 

The  young  social  worker,  and  even  the  older,  as  well  as 
many  physicians  become  discouraged  with  their  results  in  the 
handling  of  the  insane.  "What,"  they  ask,  "  can  you  do  for 
the  patient?  Nothing  but  commitment  to  an  insane  hospital, 
and  what  is  that  but  a  form  of  imprisonment?"  They  have 
missed  the  fundamental  point  in  commitment — the  safeguarding 
of  society.  For  it  is  not  the  actual  physical  damage  an  insane 
person  may  do  that  is  of  greatest  importance — it  is  the  general- 
ized social  damage.  This  damage  occurs  because  he  disor- 
ganizes homes,  lowers  the  mood  and  the  efficiency  of  the  normal 
people  in  daily  contact  with  him,  is  a  focus  of  social  difficulty  of 
all  kinds  which  becomes  diminished  to  its  lowest  possible  figure 
on  commitment.  Here  the  social  adjustment,  in  which  the 
worker  plays  a  preliminary  part,  is  in  sequestering  the  individual 
but  the  social  adjustment  thus  carried  out  is  of  high  importance. 

Feeblemindedness  has  great  social  significance  as  has  been 
pointed  in  almost  innumerable  writings  of  late.  Though  it  is 
my  belief  that  there  has  been  marked  exaggeration  as  to  its  role 
in  criminality,  prostitution,  and  the  like  yet  it  remains  true  that 
the  social  difficulties  of  the  feeble-minded  bring  them  into  con- 
tact with  the  courts,  the  relief  agencies,  and  make  them  the 
despair  of  the  employer.  Since  many  of  them  are  non-com- 
mittable,  and  others  need  not  be  committed,  the  difficulty  of 
finding  a  place  in  the  social  structure  for  these  is  a  problem  for 
the  social  worker.  To  keep  the  lawlessly  inclined  out  of  trouble 
by  constant  supervision,  to  find  a  place  of  employment  for  the 
low  grade  employee,  are  not  easy  tasks.  Yet  that  the  first  task 
has  been  to  some  extent  accomplished  is  based  on  the  authority 


Abraham  Myerson  227 


of  Dr.  William  Healey,  who  states  that  juvenile  crime  in  Boston 
is  neither  so  frequent  nor  so  serious  in  nature  as  in  Chicago,  and 
this  he  attributes  to  the  excellent  social  service  organizations  of 
Boston.  The  second  task  is  part  of  the  great  general  program 
of  efficiency,  and  it  may  be  summed  up  "Low  grade  work  for 
low  grade  people. "  To  have  high  grade  people  doing  such  work 
is  economic  waste. 

The  extension  of  Psychiatry  to  criminology  is  merely  the 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  point  of  departure  in  crime  is 
the  criminal  himself — his  mentality,  his  personality — matters 
which  call  for  psychiatric  investigation.  With  the  entrance  of 
medicine  and  psychology  into  this  field  the  scope  of  the  activities 
of  the  psychiatric  social  worker  has  broadened,  potentially  at 
least,  to  an  almost  unlimited  degree.  For  the  collection  of  the 
life  data  relating  to  any  one  who  has  become  a  breaker  of  the 
laws  is  one  of  the  two  fundamental  inquiries  necessary  before 
establishing  responsibility,  and  before  initiating  treatment. 
For  the  conception  of  treatment  must  supplant  that  of  punish- 
ment, and  treatment  is  social  adjustment,  which  at  present  is 
partly  undertaken  by  probation  departments,  and  in  larger  part 
not  undertaken  at  all.  Here  is  a  social  work  of  difficulty  but  of 
great  promise  for  the  trained  person. 

Now  it  is  not  only  the  insane,  the  feeble-minded,  the  criminal 
who  are  the  "material"  of  the  psychiatrist,  and  the  psychiatric 
social  worker.  The  difficulties  of  adaptation  to  the  "Great 
Society,"  the  balking  of  desires  and  instincts,  the  crushing  power 
of  failure  and  disillusionment,  the  injury  done  by  poverty  and 
all  that  goes  with  it,  psychically  and  physically  make  up  the 
background  of  neurasthenia,  psychasthenia,  hysteria — diseases 
of  emotional  and  intellectual  mal-adaptation.  Here  especially 
the  social  situations  are  of  great  importance  and  often  the 
remedy  is  entirely  social.  Removal  to  a  better  neighborhood, 
a  start  on  another  social  road,  the  smoothing  out  of  domestic 
difficulty,  adjustment  to  the  mate,  better  care  for  the  sick  child, 
relief  in  part  from  monotonous  drudgery — I  believe,  that  here  is 
where  social  service  helps  essentially  normal  people  out  of  ab- 
normal social  situations  into  relative  health. 

One  cannot  omit  the  War  from  any  discussion,  and  here  the 
psychiatric  social  worker  may  confidently  look  forward  to  a  field 
of  work.  For  the  war  will  break  down  many  a  man,  not  only 
in  the  way  indicated  by  the  term  "Shell  Shock"  but  by  produc- 
ing a  protracted  mental  attitude  which  may  be  classed  with 


The  Psychiatric  Social  Worker 


neurasthenia.  Men  will  come  out  weary,  restless,  full  of  physi- 
cal and  mental  pains  and  aches,  ridden  by  obsessions,  and 
harassed  by  inaptitude.  And  these  men  will  have  to  be  helped, 
and  solicitously  helped,  with  the  attitude  that  they  are  claimants 
to  the  best  efforts  of  society.  Their  claim  will  be  supported  by- 
those  who  love  them,  by  those  who  will  find  their  chief  interest 
in  the  problem:  "How  can  He  get  well?"  Anything  short  of  the 
best  will  produce  mutterings  and  a  sullen  discontent  that  may 
well  shake  the  foundations  of  the  state.  This  aspect  of  the 
work  of  the  psychiatric  social  worker  cannot  be  over  emphasized. 
Aside  from  the  ordinary  value  of  such  social-adjustment  work,  it 
gains  additional  importance  because,  in  direct  ratio  to  its  suc- 
cess it  will  make  for  social  stability. 

Consequently  there  is  a  double  need  for  such  a  school 
as  Smith  College  is  fostering  this  summer  —  the  peace-need  and 
War-need.  Civilian  and  soldier,  in  so  far  as  they  become 
neuro-psychiatric  problems  are  problems  of  society,  and  must 
be  helped  by  trained  workers.  Good  intentions  alone  will  be 
worse  than  useless,  and  the  cooperation  of  psychologist,  so- 
ciologists, social  workers,  and  psychiatrists  to  educate  young 
women  for  the  work,  is  a  step  toward  social  efficiency. 

What  type  of  woman  is  needed?  It  is  perhaps  easier  to 
state  the  objectionable  qualities.  For  this  kind  of  work  brings 
one  into  contact  with  such  disturbing  qualities  of  human  person- 
ality as  to  make  frankness  necessary  in  the  consideration  of 
the  character  of  the  worker. 

First,  the  Prude  must  keep  away.  For  in  psychiatry  one 
meets  sex  not  only  naked  but  often  perverted  as  well.  One 
must  be  able  to  face  the  objectionable  without  qualm  and  preju- 
dice in  order  to  adjust  to  it.  The  essence  of  Prudery  is  a 
squeamishness  to  Fact,  and  this  is  the  crime  of  crimes  in  a  social 
record. 

Second,  one  must  not  be  "over  strong."  By  this  I  mean 
that  person  who  believes  the  race  is  to  the  swift,  and  the  battle 
to  the  strong,  and  that  they  who  fall  are  unfit  and  ought  to  be 
eliminated  without  further  ado.  It  takes  only  a  glimmering 
of  sanity  to  know  that  this  is  not  true,  that  it  is  pure,  unadul- 
terated egoism,  the  gospel  of  the  young  and  successful.  The 
social  worker  needs  above  all  things  the  idea  that  insanity,  crime, 
failure,  all  have  their  seed  in  her,  that  normal  and  abnormal 
are  distinctions  applied  to  extremes  of  quantitative  difference. 
Such  an  idea  links  together  social  worker  and  patient  with  the 


Abraham  Myerson  229 


bond  of  fellowship,  and  insures  sympathy  and  tact  on  the  part 
of  the  former,  and  a  willingness-to-be-helped  attitude  on  the 
part  of  the  latter. 

Hyperaestheticism,  that  is,  attention  to  form,  rather  than 
matter,  the  cult  of  beauty,  is  out  of  place  in  a  psychiatric  social 
worker,  but  there  is  little  danger  that  a  person  tainted  with  this 
quality  will  seek  the  work.  The  over-emotional  rarely  stay  in 
long,  for  gushes  of  feeling,  ecstasies  of  sympathy  bring  too 
violent  reaction  in  the  face  of  unbudging  reality.  For  society 
has  so  few  real  adjustments,  and  so  much  creaking  and  groaning 
of  paraphernalia  is  needed  to  utilize  these,  that  sturdy,  clear- 
sighted energy  is  necessary  and  the  over-emotional  rarely  is 
capable  of  sustained  effort. 

It  is  understood,  then,  that  the  qualities  of  good,  solid, 
young  womanhood  are  present  in  the  candidate  for  training  for 
psychiatric  social  work.  Such  a  person  will  be  fitted  for  activi- 
ties that  are  as  well  paid  as  the  better  grade  of  teaching,  and 
for  her  services  the  demand  will  raise  the  reward  to  steadily 
higher  levels.  Unquestionably,  the  war  will  raise  all  social 
work  in  dignity  and  remuneration,  for  the  war  is  bringing  a 
unifying  feeling  of  social  responsibility  to  the  heart  of  every 
American.  And  social  responsibility  is  the  energizing  feeling 
behind  social  activities.  Like  other  problems  of  society  the  day 
when  we  considered  the  field  of  psychiatry  the  province  of 
medicine  alone  is  passing,  has  almost  passed.  As  ally  and 
servant,  social  science  has  stepped  in  to  help  the  older  profession. 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

On  account  of  illness,  Mr.  L.  H.  Horton  has  been  unable  to  cor- 
rect the  proofs  of  the  conclusion  of  his  article  "The  Illusion  of  Levi- 
tation"  up  to  the  time  of  going  to  press, 

It  is  considered  advisable  to  publish  an  abridged  number  at  this 
time  rather  than  wait  longer  for  Mr.  Horton's  contribution,  which 
will  appear  in  a  subsequent  issue  of  the  Journal. 

THE  EDITOR. 


230 


DISEASES  or  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.  A  Text-book  of  Neurology 
and  Psychiatry.  By  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D.,  Adjunct  Pro- 
fessor of  Diseases  of  the  Mind  and  Nervous  System,  New  York  Post- 
Graduate  Medical  School  and  Hospital;  and  William  A.  White,  M.  D., 
Superintendent  of  St.  Elizabeth's  Hospital,  Washington,  D.  C.;  Pro- 
fessor of  Mental  and  Nervous  Diseases,  Georgetown  University;  Pro- 
fessor of  Nervous  and  Mental  Diseases,  George  Washington  Universi- 
ty; and  Lecturer  on  Psychiatry,  U.  S.  Army  and  U.  S.  Navy  Medical 
Schools.  Second  Edition,  Revised,  Rewritten  and  Enlarged.  Illus- 
trated with  424  engravings  and  11  plates.  Published  by  Lea  &  Febi- 
ger,  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  1917.  Pp.  XIX  and  938.  Price, 
$7.00. 

Improvements  have  been  made  in  this,  the  second  edition  of  this, 
excellent  text-book,  in  the  chapters  on  the  vegetative  nervous  system 
and  the  endocrinopathies,  and  the  sections  devoted  to  the  psychoses 
proper,  while  war  injuries  have  been  included  in  the  discussion.  A 
general  introduction  has  also  been  added,  elaborating  the  authors* 
views  on  classification  of  disorders  of  the  nervous  system.  The  book 
has  further  been  generally  revised  and  rewritten. 

Since  the  first  edition  of  this  work  was  not  reviewed  in  the  pages 
of  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  a  general  survey  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  volume  is  not  out  of  place  at  this  date. 

Following  a  chapter  on  methods  of  examination  of  the  nervous 
system,  the  authors  classify  the  material  of  neurology  and  psychiatry 
under  three  main  headings  or  systems,  named  the  physico-chemical 
systems  or  the  neurology  of  metabolism,  the  sensorimotor  systems  or 
sensorimotor  neurology,  and  the  psychical  or  symbolic  systems  includ- 
ing the  neuroses,  psychoneuroses  and  psychoses. 

The  first  part,  the  physico-chemical  systems,  is  divided  into  two 
sections,  dealing  with  the  vegetative  or  visceral  system  and  the  endo- 
crinopathies respectively.  The  chapter  on  the  vegetative  or  visceral 
nervous  system  is  a  splendid  presentation  of  the  known  facts  and 
dominant  views  in  that  field.  In  no  work  of  the  sort  before  us,  namely, 
a  text-book  of  neurology  and  psychiatry,  can  there  be  found,  to  the 
reviewer's  knowledge,  any  exposition  that  can  be  compared  with  the 
presentation  given  in  White  and  Jelliffe  in  thoroughness,  directness,  and 
up-to-dateness.  This  is,  in  truth,  one  of  the  most  distinctive  features 
of  the  book. 

231 


Reviews 


In  the  second  part,  sensorimotor  neurology,  we  have  a  compact 
and  up-to-the-minute  summary  of  the  various  affections  of  this  part 
of  the  body  machinery,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  rungs  or  levels 
of  the  central  nervous  system.  The  pages  given  up  to  "Syphilis  of 
the  Nervous  System"  offer  one  a  good  grasp  of  the  havoc  which  may 
be  wrought  by  the  spirocheta  pallida.  This  is  one  of  the  best  portions 
of  this  text-book. 

Finally,  in  the  part  labelled  "Psychic  or  Symbolic  Systems," 
comes  the  discussion  of  the  psychoneuroses,  neuroses  and  psychoses, 
including  mental  defectiveness.  Since  both  authors  are  Freudians, 
it  is  to  be  expected  that  they  should  weave  into  much  of  their  discussion 
in  this  section  the  Freudian  views.  This,  to  be  sure,  we  find  true. 
Especially  so  can  this  be  said  to  apply  to  the  chapter  on  "The  Psycho- 
neuroses  and  Actual  Neuroses."  In  fact,  it  must  be  said  that  they 
have  practically  neglected  the  views  of  others  on  this  problem  and 
have  presented  things  from  the  more  or  less  strictly  Freudian  view- 
point. Such  one-sidedness  in  a  work  of  this  sort,  intended,  it  must  be 
remembered,  for  students,  novices  in  a  new  field  of  thought  and  labor, 
is,  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying,  not  exactly  scientifically  fair  to  the 
inquiring  and  innocent  student. 

The  illustrations  are  abundant  and  excellent,  many  of  them  being 
from  Dejerine. 

As  in  everything  they  write,  singly  or  jointly,  White  and  Jelliffe 
have  run  true  to  form  and  given  the  profession  a  volume  which  is  not 
cold,  dry-as-dust,  and  uninviting,  but  one  which  tells  in  a  snappy, 
lively  and  concise  manner  the  long  and  many-sided  story  of  the  wound- 
ed nervous  system  in  all  its  complexity  and  at  all  its  levels. 

Needless  to  say,  the  book  is  modern  —  very  modern,  not  old  fash- 
ioned, quite  up-to-the-minute.  More,  however,  could  have  been  added 
on  war  injuries,  especially  on  so-called  shell-shock  or  war  neurosis. 
Had  the  latter  subject  been  presented,  it  would  have^been  in  sharp 
contradiction  to  the  views  expressed  in  the  chapter  on  the  psycho- 
neuroses,  for,  most  will  agree,  the  war  neuroses,  a  form  of  traumatic 
neurosis,  have  proven  to  us  conclusively,  if  we  doubted  it  before,  that 
the  Freudians  were  in  error,  at  least  in  assigning  an  exclusively  sexual 
etiology  as  the  origin  of  the  psychoneuroses  and  allied  conditions. 

It  may  be  said,  too,  that  the  book  is  probably  more  suited  for  an 
advanced  student  of  neurology  than  for  a  beginner. 

One  other  criticism  may  be  added.  In  their  efforts  to  bring  home 
the  role  of  the  psychogenic  factor,  the  authors  at  times  lay  too  much 
stress  on  the  power  of  psychogenic  factors  in  inducing  all  sorts  of 
peripheral  reactions  of  the  lowest  type.  For  instance,  on  page  166, 


Reviews  233 

they  refer  to  certain  cases  of  eczema  and  psoriasis  as  being  symbols  of 
a  psychical  compromise,  the  results  of  chronic  emotional  conflicts  in 
the  unconscious ;  and  again,  on  page  244,  they  refer  to  possible  psycho- 
genie  arthropathies  and  arthritides. 

All  in  all,  however,  White  and  Jelliffe  have  contributed  a  valuable, 
worth-while  work,  in  which  they  have  endeavored  to  offer  something 
new,  something  appealing  to  progressive  tendencies  in  neurology  and 
psychiatry. 

The  fact  that  a  second  edition  has  already  been  called  for  shows 
that  the  reaction  on  the  part  of  their  audience  has  been  sympathetic 
and  generous. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 

PERSONALITY  AND  CONDUCT.  By  Maurice  Parmelee,  Ph.D.r 
Author  of  "The  Science  of  Human  Behavior,"  "Poverty  and  Social 
Progress,"  "Criminology,"  "The  Principles  of  Anthropology  and 
Sociology  in  Their  Relations  to  Criminal  Procedure,"  etc.  New  York: 
Moffat,  Yard  &  Company,  1918.  Price,  $2.00  net.  Pp.  283. 

One  who  has  read  Parmelee's  splendid  work  entitled  "The  Science 
of  Human  Behavior"  should  expect  nothing  but  good  work  from  the 
mind  and  pen  of  this  particular  author.  The  author  seems  to  have 
laid  his  groundwork  in  the  book  just  mentioned,  and  then  to  liave 
followed  this  up  by  a  discussion  of  the  poverty  problem,  then  the 
problem  of  the  socalled  criminal,  and  now  in  the  volume  under  review 
by  a  discussion  of  certain  other  questions. 

Parmelee  pleads  for  the  development  and  cultivation  of  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  human  nature  in  desirable  directions. 

He  differentiates  between  what  he  calls  invasive  (including  acts 
which  are  obviously  and  unmistakably  harmful  to  others)  and  non- 
invasive  (including  acts  which  do  not  injure  others  or  are  not  un- 
questionably harmful  to  others)  conduct.  Upon  this  should  the 
criterion  for  social  control  be  based. 

The  book  is  devoted  for  the  most  part  to  the  discussion  of  the 
nature  and  regulation  of  three  aspects  of  human  life — the  craving  for 
noxious  substances,  especially  alcohol,  "the  spirit  of  adventure  and 
tendency  to  take  chances  in  the  form  of  gambling  and  useless  and 
wasteful  speculation,"  and  the  sex  life. 

The  causes  of  alcoholism  and  drug  habits,  their  relation  to  poverty 
and  crime,  and  the  regulation  of  intemperance  are  sanely  discussed. 

The  types  of  gambling,  the  gambling  impulse  and  the  regulation 
^  f  its  evils  come  in  for  broadminded  consideration. 

About  180  pages  are  given  up  to  an  all-round  analysis  and  dis- 


"234  Reviews 

•cussion  of  the  sex  problem  in  human  beings.  The  play  function  of  sex 
is  emphasized.  Parmelee  discusses  in  regular  order  the  play  function 
-of  sex,  methods  of  sex  regulation,  the  evils  of  sex  repression,  the  double 
standard  of  sex  freedom,  the  causes  of  prostitution,  the  utility  and 
disutility  of  prostitution,  the  failure  to  suppress  prostitution,  the 
regulation  of  prostitution,  sex  education  and  training,  and  the  or- 
ganization of  sex  relations.  Throughout  this  portion  Parmelee  shows 
that  he  is  well  versed  in  all  aspects  of  this  problem,  for  he  approaches 
the  subject  with  the  solid  foundation  of  a  good  training  in  the  biological 
viewpoint,  without  neglect  of  the  psychological,  economic  and  other 
factors  involved.  His  exposition  is  free  and  frank,  his  suggestions 
are  definite  and  well-founded,  and  he  endeavors  to  deal  sanely  and 
without  prejudice  with  various  problems  which  have  been  thorns  in 
the  sides  of  so  many. 

In  his  final  chapter  on  "The  Development  of  Personality"  the 
author  again  shows  the  evils  of  the  suppression  of  personality  through 
excessive  uniformity,  the  importance  of  free  self-expression  along 
worthwhile  lines,  and  the  great  need  for  more  knowledge  of  human 
nature. 

Parmelee  has  a  right  to  express  opinions.  He  has  read  widely, 
rand  thought  much.  And  he  is  not  afraid  to  say  what  he  thinks  and 
'what  he  means. 

His  knowledge  of  biology,  psychology,  anthropology,  and  many 
allied  fields  qualifies  him  as  a  sane  and  reliable  author,  who  handles  his 
problems  in  a  thorough  manner,  and  who  is  especially  deserving  of  an 
attentive  and  large  audience. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 

CRIMINOLOGY.  By  Maurice  Parmelee,  Ph.D.,  Author  of  "The 
Science  of  Human  Behavior,"  "Poverty  and  Social  Progress,"  "The 
Principles  of  Anthropology  and  Sociology  in  Their  Relations  to  Crim- 
inal Procedure,"  etc.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company,  1918. 
Price,  $2.00.  Pp.  522. 

Again  Parmelee  has  hit  the  bull's  eye.  This  volume  does  indeed 
present  us  with  a  comprehensive,  yet  concise  survey  of  the  whole  field 
of  criminology  from  the  point  of  view  of  social  control. 

The  work  is  divided  into  six  parts — The  Nature  and  Evolution  of 
Crime,  Criminogenic  Factors  in  the  Environment,  Criminal  Traits 
and  Types,  Criminal  Jurisprudence,  Penology,  and  Crime  and  Social 
Progress. 

In  the  first  part,  criminology  as  a-  science  is  demonstrated  to  be  a 
special,  although  hybrid  science.  The  origin  and  early  evolution  of 
Berime  are  delineated,  and  crime  and  social  control  sensibly  discussed. 


Reviews  235 

In  part  II,  Parmelee  analyzes  such  environmental  criminogenetic 
factors  as  the  physical  environment  (climate,  season,  and  weather), 
demographic  factors  (urban  and  rural  crime  and  vice),  the  economic 
and  political  bases  of  crime,  and  the  influence  of  civilization  upon 
crime. 

In  part  III,  entitled  Criminal  Traits  and  Types,  the  organic  and 
mental  bases  of  crime,  criminal  aments,  psychopathic  criminals, 
juvenile  and  female  criminality,  and  the  types  of  criminals  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  light  of  our  present  knowledge  of  these  questions. 

In  part  IV,  on  Criminal  Jurisprudence,  the  chapter  headings  will 
tell  the  reader  the  scope  of  the  presentation:  The  Evolution  of  Crimin- 
al Law  and  the  Classification  of  Crimes,  The  Functions  of  Criminal 
Procedure,  the  Scientific  Principles  of  Evidence,  Public  Defense  in 
Criminal  Trials,  the  Judicial  Function,  and  The  Police  Function. 

Under  Penology,  in  part  V,  Parmelee  takes  up  in  separate  chapters 
such  aspects  of  his  chosen  problem  as  the  origin  and  evolution  of 
punishment,  the  moral  basis  of  penal  responsibility,  the  sentence  and 
the  individualization  of  punishment,  the  death  penalty,  the  prison 
system,  and  "A  Scheme  of  Penal  Treatment." 

In  the  fifth  or  final  part  on  Crime  and  Social  Progress,  there  are 
offered  chapters  on  political  and  evolutive  crimes  and  criminals, 
evolutive  crimes  and  social  readjustment,  and  the  prevention  of  crime. 

There  is  a  valuable  "partial  bibliography." 

By  virtue  of  his  unusually  wide  reading  and  broad  grasp  of  the 
many  ramifications  of  criminology  and  allied  sciences,  Parmelee  has 
een  enabled  to  contribute,  in  a  short,  single  volume,  a  thorough  sur- 
vey of  this  flourishing  new  field  of  human  endeavor. 

Parmelee  is  fully  abreast  of  the  times,  and  no  views  that  are  worth 
while  escape  him.  He  is  in  thorough  sympathy  with  the  work  which 
is  going  on  all  about  him  by  different  sincere  and  level-headed  workers. 

One  who  wishes  to  know  what  is  going  on,  what  the  problems 
are,  what  the  progress  is,  in  the  field  of  criminology,  can  do  no  better 
than  get  this  work  by  Parmelee. 

Needless  to  say,  all  workers  in  the  field  of  criminology  will  appre- 
ciate this  new  work  by  a  good  thinker  and  clear  writer. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  BEHAVIOUR.  A  Practical  Study  of  Human 
Personality  and  Conduct  with  Special  Reference  to  Methods  of  De- 
velopment. By  Elizabeth  Severn,  Author  of  "Psycho-therapy." 
New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  1917.  Pp.  349.  $1.50  net. 


236  Reviews 

This  is  supposed  to  be  "a  systemtized  practical  psychology  for 
actual  use  in  daily  life." 

The  seven  chapters  have  the  following  headings:  "Some  New 
Aspects  of  Mind — The  Psychology  of  the  Unconscious;"  "Intellect 
— The  Psychology  of  Perception;"  "Imagination  and  Memory — The 
Psychology  of  Extension  and  Retention;"  "Will — The  Psychology  of 
Action;"  "Emotion— The  Psychology  of  Feeling;  "Sex— The  Psy- 
chology of  the  Creative  Life; "  and  "  Self — The  Psychology  of  the  Ego. " 
These  chapter  headings  will  at  once  give  one  a  fair  idea  of  the  contents 
of  this  book. 

On  page  four  the  author  acknowledges  that  her  "viewpoint  is 
frankly  metaphysical  rather  than  biological,  and  idealistic  and  sugges- 
tive rather  than  materialistic  and  'positive."  Its  appeal  was  meant 
to  be  popular,  and  many  of  the  suggestions  which  are  crowded  within 
the  scope  of  each  chapter  cannot  help  being,  for  the  most  part,  of 
considerable  usefulness  if  taken  to  heart  and  practically  applied.  It 
will  also  give  the  average  reader  some  practical  psychological  sugges- 
tions which  should  set  him  thinking  on  his  own  account. 

Most  of  the  topics  dealt  with  are  rather  summarily  and  super- 
ficially handled,  with  the  object  of  directness,  simplicity  and  popular 
appeal. 

The  writer  contends  that  "the  burden  of  my  thesis  is  for  greater 
freedom  and  spontaneity  in  Behavior,  rather  than  for  restraint." 
Self-direction  with  self-understanding  may  be  said  to  be  her  ideal. 
But  it  is  doubtful  whether  one  can  gain  this  knowledge  from  the  book. 

Throughout  she  shows  that  she  has  read  psychoanalytical  litera- 
ture, for  she  has  .absorbed  some  of  the  views  of  psychoanalysis  and 
incorporated  them  in  this  work.  So  much  so  is  this  the  case  that  in 
her  chapter  on  the  psychology  of  sex  she  reduces  all  life-manifesta- 
tions and  all  forms  of  energy  to  sex.  She  hopes  for  the  day  when, 
among  other  desirable  things  devoutly  to  be  wished  for,  "homosex- 
uality, however  unfortunate,  is  known  to  be  neither  a  crime  nor  a 
disease,"  and,  she  adds:  "Let  us  do  our  part  in  preparation  for  it  by 
realizing  that  the  Sex-instinct  is  the  centre  around  which  everything 
revolves,  that  nothing  exists  but  through  it." 

One  becomes  convinced  of  the  writer's  sincerity  as  one  reads  the 
book  She  has  apparently  read  rather  widely  in  psychology. 

All  in  all  she  has  given  the  average  layman  a  useful  volume,  which 
can  be  read  with  considerable  profit  by  most  persons,  with  many 
truths  scattered  through  its  pages,  but  with  some  errors  here  and  there, 
especially  in  the  chapter  on  "Sex — The  Psychologv  of  the  Creative 
Life." 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 


Reviews  237 

THE  CREED  OF  DEUTSCHTUM  AND  OTHER  WAR  ESSAYS,  Including 
THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  KAISER,  With  a  Foreword  by  Marquis 
Okuma  (Late  Prime  Minister  of  Japan).  By  Morton  Prince.  Boston: 
Richard  G.  Badger,  1918.  Price,  $2.00,  Net.  Pp.  311.* 

An  understanding  of  the  driving  forces  responsible  for  the  onset  of 
the  Great  War  is  of  the  greatest  interest  to  the  psychopathologist. 
For  this  reason,  besides  other  weighty  reasons,  this  "book  by  Morton 
Prince  will  find  an  appreciative  audience.  Although  the  reviewer  has 
read  many  other  expositions  of  a  somewhat  similar  nature,  and  long 
since  was  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  views  expressed  by  Prince  in 
his  first  chapter  on  "The  Creed  of  Deutschtun,"  there  is  no  other 
article  which  he  has  read  which  so  briefly  and  so  ably  presents  the 
subject  from  the  standpoint  of  a  psychologist,  yet  simply  so  that  he 
who  runs  may  read  and  understand,  and,  let  us  hope,  believe.  In 
this  essay  Prince  shows  that  the  mystic  paranoid  ideal  of  Das  Deut- 
schtum  (inadequately  translatable  as  "Germanism"  or  "German- 
dom")  had  become  for  the  rank  and  file  of  the  mass  of  the  German 
people  nothing  less  than  a  religion.  The  history  of  the  origin  ;  r.d 
evolution  of  his  ideal  takes  us  back  to  the  German  philosophers 
Hegel,  Kant  and  Fichte,  until  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  it  had  im- 
pregnated German  thought  so  thoroughly  that  not  only  the  universities, 
the  teachers,  the  socalled  intellectuals,  but  all  classes,  such  as  captains 
of  industry,  statesmen,  military  writers  and  even  the  masses  were 
infected  with  the  contagious  diseased  state  of  mind  which  resulted 
therefrom.  Prince  develops  the  principles  of  Das  Deutschtum.  He 
shows  how  this  has  become  the  national  consciousness  of  Germany. 
Prussian  militarism  is  but  one  of  the  patent  expressions  of  the  under- 
lying state  of  mind  which  dominated  the  classes  of  Germany. 

In  the  second  chapter  on  "Prussian  Militarism  and  a  Lasting 
Peace,"  Prince  shows  how  the  world  war  now  raging  is  a  conflict 
between  two  principles  of  government,  with  the  need  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Prussian  militarism  and  of  the  deluded,  obsessional  state  of 
mind  brought  on  by  the  dangerous  ideal  of  Das  Deutschtum. 

The  kaiser  himself  is  but  a  mouthpiece  whence  emanate  many  of 
the  thoughts  and  attitudes  which  have  been  built  up  on  his  mental 
soil  as  a  result  of  the  philosophy  with  which  he,  in  common  with 
others,  has  been  impregnated.  He  therefore  represents  Prussian 
militarism  and  the  state  of  mind  of  the  German  national  consciousness 
which  Prince  has  here  called  Das  Deutschtum. 

And  it  is  at  this  point  that  Prince  interjects  his  very  excellent  study 
of  the  kaiser  which  a  short  time  ago  appeared  as  a  separate  little 
volume  with  the  same  title  as  Chapter  III — "The  Psychology  of  the 


238  Reviews 

Kaiser."  A  Foreword  by  Marquis  Okuma  and  an  Introduction  by 
Professor  Shiowasa)  both  of  which  appeared  with  the  Japanese  transla- 
tion of  this  essay)  are  included.  This  part  of  the  work  was  reviewed 
by  me  for  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology  when  it  appeared  in 
book  form,  and  he  who  has  not  read  the  original  book  will  do  well  to 
read  it  here.  It  is  the  best  exposition  of  the  mental  mechanisms  of 
the  kaiser  that  the  reviewer  has  read  anywhere. 

Four  essays  entitled  "The  American  Versus  The  German  View- 
point," "The  American  Conscience,  1914-1915,"  "The  Disintegra- 
tion of  an  Ideal,"  (in  which  the  author,  before  the  United  States 
entered  the  war,  pleaded  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to 
protest  against  the  atrocities  of  the  German  government),  and  "The 
War — A  Test  of  the  Germany  Theory  of  Militarism"  respectively, 
are  followed  by  that  comprehensive  and  sound  chapter  on  "A  World 
Consciousness  and  Future  Peace,"  which  appeared  recently  in  the 
Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  and  in  which  Prince  demonstrates 
that  the  future  peace  of  the  world  depends  in  the  last  analysis  upon  a 
world  consciousness  in  international  relations.  The  problem  is  thus 
reduced  to  that  of  education,  of  proper  mental  attitudes,  of  psychology. 

The  other  fellow  who  disagrees  with  the  author  may  not  feel  so 
pleased  with  the  work  as  the  reviewer  is,  but  it  would  do  him  good  to 
read  it. 

It  is  gratifying  to  see  psychologists  of  the  standing  of  Morton 
Prince  enter  the  field  of  such  decidedly  practical  affairs  as  international 
relationships. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 

*This  review  was  received  for  publication  before  the  armstice  was  signed. 


THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


VOL.  XIII  DECEMBER,  1918  NUMBER  5 


ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


A  CASE  OF  ALTERED  EMOTIONS  BEARING  ON 
THE  LANGE-JAMES  THEORY 

BY    ABRAHAM   MYERSON,    M.    D. 

CHIEF  MEDICAL  OFFICER,  OUT-PATIENT  DEPARTMENT, 

PSYCHOPATHIC  DEPARTMENT,  BOSTON  STATE  HOSPITAL. 

ASST.  PROF.  OF  NEUROLOGY,  TUFTS  COLLEGE  MEDICAL  SCHOOL 

THE  famous  Lange- James  theory  of  the  emotions  states 
indirect  opposition  to  both  the  Introspectionists'  and 
Intellectualists'  Schools  that  the  essential  features  of 
any  emotion  are  its  bodily  manifestations — "so  that 
were  the  bodily  commotions  suppressed  we  should  not  so  much 
feel  fear  as  call  the  situation  fearful;  we  should  not  be  surprised 
but  coldly  recognize  that  the  object  was  indeed  extraordinary. 
One  of  the  enthusiastic  has  gone  even  so  far  as  to  state  that  when 
we  feel  sorry  it  is  because  we  weep;  when  we  feel  afraid  it  is 

because  we  run  away,  and  not  conversely ". 

The  case  which  I  am  citing  seems  to  show  that  feeling  may 
itself  be  absent  from  consciousness,  even  though  the  vaso-vis- 
ceral  manifestations  are  fully  developed,  and  what  is  more,  fully 
appropriate.  That  is  to  say,  in  response  to  a  sad  situation  this 
patient  cries,  in  response  to  other  situations  she  laughs,  with- 
out— so  she  says — being  either  sad  or  glad.  So  with  the  other 
emotions.  That  is  to  say  in  direct  contradiction  to  what  is 
quoted  from  Jamesin  the  paragraph  above — though  she  weeps 
she  does  not  feel  sorry;  though  she  runs  away  she  does  not 
feel  fear. 

Impulsive  laughing  and  crying  under  inappropriate  situations 
without  feeling  have  been  described  as  occurring  in  diseases 
of  the  basal-nuclei.  I  have  seen  several  such  cases,  and  have 
corroborated  the  hazard  as  to  the  lesion  by  an  autopsy  in  one 

Copyright  1919  by  Richard  0.  Badger.     All  Rights  Reserved. 

239 


240  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions 

case.  In  the  case  here  cited  there  was  no  organic  disease,  and 
in  addition  to  mere  laughing  and  crying,  sadness  and  gladness 
or  other  emotions  the  fundamental  organic  sensations  are  absent, 
— that  is  to  say  neither  sorrow  nor  joy,  fear  nor  anger,  hunger  nor 
thirst,  sex  desire  nor  fatigue  are  present.  Generally  phrased 
psychic  pleasure  and  pain  are  absent  though  their  manifestations 
are  fully  present.  There  is,  however,  the  recognition  that  the 
absence  of  feeling  is  somehow  wrong,  is  a  void,  and  something 
vital  lacking.  It  is  because  of  the  conviction  that  she  is  not 
much  better  than  dead,  and  to  obtain  explanation  and  treatment 
that  the  patient  presents  herself  at  the  Out-patient  Dept.  of  the 
Psychopathic  Hospital. 

The  case  history  follows : 

Miss  -  — ,  case  No.  7868,  age  32,  single,  of 

Anglo-Saxon  ancestry  which  has  been  American  for  many 
generations,  a  native  of  Georgia,  has  nothing  of  special  im- 
portance in  her  family  history.  Her  mother  was  nervous  but 
not  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  and  there  has  been  no  mental 
disease  in  the  family  (all  this  and  the  following  is  according  to 
the  patient,  for  there  is  no  outside  history  obtainable).  Her 
own  childhood  was  uneventful.  She  went  through  High  School 
successfully,  entered  the  business  world  and  held  fairly  good 
positions. 

In  temperament  she  has  always  been  "nervous,"  that  is  to 
say  emotions  of  pleasure  or  pain  had  a  low  threshold,  were  easily 
aroused  and  quite  pronouncedly  demonstrated.  When  "sad- 
dened" or  "hurt"  she  cried  easily  and  copiously,  when  pleased 
or  flattered  she  laughed,  perhaps  above  measure.  She  was 
rather  shy  but  loved  people.  She  liked  music  and  the  "finer 
things."  The  sense  of  disgust  was  exceedingly  easily  aroused, 
which  is,  of  course,  related  to  her  luxurious  and  keenly  asthetic 
tastes.  Like  many  people  who  react  vigorously  to  the  disagree- 
able, she  was  easily  fatigued,  and  looked  ahead  enough  to  be 
easily  worried  and  depressed.  One  might  call  her  cyclothymic, 
except  that  generally  speaking  her  moods  related  to  definite 
happenings,  and  had  not  so  much  the  element  of  the  unknown, 
the  organic,  as  the  cyclothymic  do.  Her  energy  was  low, 
affectivity  high,  and  she  reacted  to  the  outside  world  with 
emotion  rather  than  with  objectively  directed  conduct.  In  a 
word,  she  corresponded  to  the  "sensitive"  type  of  Ribot. 

A  few  words  about  her  sexual  life.  This  seems  to  have 
been  conspicuously  undeveloped.  The  menstrual  flow  has  been 
always  rather  scant,  but  the  periods  though  established  at 


Abraham  Myerson  241 


fifteen  are  regular  and  without  excessive  pain.  She  has  never 
known  what  she  has  recognized  as  definite  sex  desire,  though 
when  with  the  man  she  loved  she  felt  a  tingling,  electric-like 
feeling  throughout  her  body.  Since  she  never  embraced  nor 
kissed  him,  (nor  any  other  man),  she  has  had  no  experience  of  the 
more  vigorous  sexual  feeling  that  goes  with  bodily  contact. 
Despite  her  thirty-two  years  of  life  she  seems  conspicuously 
ignorant  of  sex  matters.  Virginal,  childlike  in  appearance  and 
views,  she  also  seems  to  have  been  virginal  and  childlike  in  sex 
feeling. 

Seven  years  ago  the  patient  came  to  Boston  to  live  with  a 
friend  and  work  in  the  city.  This  friend,  a  sort  of  philanthropist 
and  encourager  of  struggling  talent,  had  as  a  frequent  visitor  a 
young  musician  two  years  the  junior  of  the  patient,  and  with 
whom  she  speedily  fell  in  love.  This  love  was  apparently  not 
openly  reciprocated.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  ever  was  anything 
but  annoyed  by  her  affection.  At  any  rate,  he  never  responded 
to  her  advances,  which  were  probably  shy  and  without  definite 
form.  But  the  lady  of  the  house,  divining  her  secret  and  not 
wishing  the  affair  to  continue  since  she  felt  it  could  only  turn 
out  unhappily  for  the  girl,  prevailed  upon  her  to  go  home  to 
Georgia. 

This  she  did,  and  had  what  she  calls  "nervous  prostration," 
that  is  she  was  sadly  lacking  in  energy,  easily  and  painfully 
fatigued,  given  to  paroxysms  of  tears  and  sometimes  of  "hys- 
teric" laughter,  easily  startled  by  noises,  somewhat  seclusive 
and  depressed,  and  decidedly  introspective,  with  much  day- 
dreaming, and  a  good  deal  of  pain.  The  pain  was  especially 
located  in  the  head  and  consisted  mostly  of  a  tension  and  feeling 
of  internal  pressure.  (This  occurs  in  my  experience  in  what  I 
have  begun  to  term  "circular"  thinking,  that  is  where  the  same 
set  of  emotions,  desires  and  ideas  occur  and  recur  against  the  will 
of  "the  patient,  so  that  he  lives  in  what  one  patient  termed  "a 
monotonous  merry-go-round "  of  thought  and  feeling).  This 
pain  became  very  intense  and  on  the  day  when  the  crisis,  later 
described,  occurred  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  the  very  top  of  the  head 
was  about  to  be  lifted  off. 

The  crisis  took  a  severe  delirious  form.  She  became  con- 
fused, "feverish,"  only  partly  aware  of  what  was  going  on  about 
her,  and  was  confined  to  her  bed.  There  were  no  hallucinations 
nor  delusions,  no  disorderly  conduct — but  the  pain  in  her  head 
became  more  than  she  could  bear.  This  lasted  a  day  and  was 
considered  to  be  Grippe.  Then  she  "recovered,"  that  is  the 


242  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions 

pain  left,  she  gained  rapidly  in  strength  and  endurance,  and  put 
on  weight.  In  a  few  days  she  noticed  the  symptom  of  which 
she  still  complains,  and  which  has  not  changed  in  any  extent 
from  that  time  five  years  ago,  to  this.  In  brief,  there  is  an  entire 
dearth  of  feeling,  despite  the  fact  that  she  expresses  emotion 
perfectly  naturally. 

Now,  as  will  be  later  detailed,  though  there  is  lacking  -in 
consciousness  of  feeling  there  is  not  a  corresponding  lack  of 
desires.  For  example, — she  wants  to  love  the  man,  is  attracted 
to  him,  but  cannot  find  anything  like  the  feeling  she  used  to  have. 
She  went  to  see  him  off  to  war  and  though  all  her  thought  con- 
cerned him,  and  she  would  have  wished,  ("if  I  can  use  the  word 
wish"),  to  marry  him,  yet  there  was  a  deadness  of  feeling. 
Likewise  she  desires  to  get  well,  thinks  only  of  this  in  addition  to 
the  man,  yet  has  neither  hope  nor  anxiety  regarding  recovery. 
Likewise  she  wants  America  to  win  the  war,  but  there  is  no 
patriotic  feeling.  Desires  related  to  purpose  are  not  absent, 
and  intellectual  activity  is  not  definitely  impaired  so  far  as  can 
be  seen. 

Physical  examination  shows  a  slender  woman,  looking  less 
than  her  age,  with  under-developed  breasts  and  hips,  slender 
and  long  legs  and  arms.  She  has  a  rather  large  goitre,  which, 
however,  is  hard,  not  pulsating,  is  not  accompanied  by  exoph- 
thalmos,  rapid  pulse,  tremor,  nor  by  any  of  the  secondary 
signs  of  hyperthyroidism.  The  voice  is  almost  falsetto,  but  is 
not  disagreeable  is  very  childlike  and  without  the  resonance  of 
maturity.  The  visceral  and  neurological  examination  is  negative. 

In  telling  her  story  her  expression  is  animated,  though 
generally  somewhat  depressed,  and  it  is  "nervous,"  that  is,  there 
are  the  grimaces,  the  fluent  gestures,  the  over-ready  somewhat 
excessive  laugh  not  related  to  pleasure  but  to  tension  of  the 
nerves.  She  gives  the  impression  of  being  over-emotional,  and 
in  fact  cried  twice  during  the  examination.  The  first  time  she 
wTas  speaking  of  her  love  affair,  and  the  second  time  occurred 
after  I  asked  her  point  blank  if  she  had  ever  had  sexual  inter- 
course. The  tears  flowed  readily  but  there  was  no  sobbing. 
Throughout  her  talking  there  were  also  the  little  pauses  and 
accelerations  of  respiration  that  one  associates  with  emotion,  and 
her  voice  was  inflected  with  the  different  phases  of  her  story. 
Once  or  twice  her  face  became  slowly  suffused  with  a  blush. 
That  is  to  say,  were  one  to  judge  by  face,  voice,  laughter,  tears, 
respiration  and  capillaries  of  the  face,  by  the  objective  manifestations 
of  emotion,  this  patient  was  continually  emotional. 


Abraham  Myerson  243 


It  will  be  advisable  to  consider  this  patient's  organic  and 
emotional  "feelings"  in  detail,  though  possibly  it  will  become 
monotonous  to  repeat  after  each  item  that  there  was  no  feeling. 
Organic  sensations.  These,  as  is  stated,  are  prior  in  evolution 
and  need  to  the  emotions.  "They — that  is,  (hunger,  thirst,  need 
of  sleep,  fatigue,  etc.),  express  a  lacking  and  deficiency;  the 
anatomical  element,  the  tissue,  the  organism  has  need  of  some- 
thing .  .  .  All  these  needs  have  a  point  of  convergence — the 
preservation  of  the  individual;  to  use  the  current  expression — we 
see  in  them  the  exercise  of  the  instinct  of  preservation. " 

Hunger.  ''  Though  I  had  a  good  appetite  previously  I  no 
longer  have  a  desire  for  food, — no  hunger.  I  get  faint,  weak  if 
I  go  long  without  food.  I  have  fasted  for  a  day  and  have  had 
no  appetite,  though  I  became  unable  to  work.  It  is  my  reason 
and  habit  that  brings  me  to  the  table.  When  I  eat  I  have  no 
pleasure,  though  my  digestion  is  good. " 

Thirst.  Her  throat  goes  dry  and  she  is  uncomfortable,  but 
the  sensation  is  not  the  composite  indescribable  state  we  call 
thirst.  "Hot  weather  makes  me  uncomfortable  if  that  is  the 
word,  for  it  isn't  discomfort  as  I  knew  it.  A  drink  of  cool  water 
gives  me  strength,  but  pleasure  is  lacking. " 

Fatigue.  The  alteration  here  is  remarkable.  Before  the 
change  fatigue  was  easily  reached,  was  painful,  prolonged  and 
accompanied  by  mental  and  physical  prostration.  "  This  I  never 
feel  any  more.  In  fact,  I  am  much  stronger  than  ever  I  was. 
I  can  work  harder,  walk  farther,  do  more  than  ever  I  hoped 
to,  yet  what  would  I  not  give  to  be  really  tired. " 

"And  when  I  rest  these  days  there  is  no  feeling  of  recupera- 
tion. When  the  day  has  been  hot  and  I  am  weak,  and  I  am 
sitting  where  a  cool  breeze  strikes  me  there  is  not  the  delicious 
feeling  of  coolness."  Relaxation  and  rest  have  no  pleasure, 
just  as  exertion  has  no  pain. 

Sleep.  "I  can  sit  up  all  night  and  not  feel  sleepy.  I  do 
not  sleep  half  so  well  as  before.  When  I  sit  up  too  late,  even 
for  me  as  I  am  now,  my  face  feels  drawn,  and  I  am  hollow-eyed. 
I  go  to  sleep  because  I  have  reason,  but  not  because  there  is 
sleepiness."  What  is  lacking  is  the  pain  of  great  sleepiness,  or 
the  delicious  languor  of  moderate  somnolence. 

The  change  in  these  fundamental  organic  sensations  has 
not  as  yet  brought  physical  disorder  because  intelligence,  habit, 
and  the  pressure  of  social  custom  force  her  to  eat,  drink,  rest  and 
sleep  in  about  the  same  way  as  before.  Except  for  the  lost 
pleasure,  which  is  a  serious  matter,  this  side  of  her  condition  has 


244  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions 

some  compensation,  which  is  added  to  when  we  consider  her 
reaction  to  noises  and  annoyances.  There  is,  of  course,  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  these  two  forms  of  displeasing  occur- 
rences, but  it  is  convenient  to  consider  them  together.  "My 
nervousness  was  extreme."  A  sudden  noise  made  her  tremble, 
grow  pale,  sent  her  heart  racing,  and  her  breath  became  gasping. 
The  fear  was  intense  and  persistent,  and  interfered  with  diges- 
tion and  rest.  Now  such  a  noise  may  make  her  jump,  though 
this  occurs  but  seldom,  but  nothing  else  happens.  The  "ner- 
vousness" is  gone,  as  is  also  exemplified  by  the  reaction  to  petty 
annoyances.  Whereas  little  discords,  little  troubles,  little  inter- 
ferences with  her  comfort  were  formerly  reacted  to  with  undue 
and  prolonged  emotion  now  they  pass  her  over.  Psychic  pain 
is  diminished  just  as  is  psychic  pleasure.  (I  use  the  term 
psychic  pain  and  pleasure  though  understanding  fully  that  all 
pain  and  pleasure  are  psychic). 

This  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  emotions  properly 
so  called.  A  theoretical  difficulty  lies  in  the  classification  of  the 
emotions,  but  for  practical  purposes  I  am  following  Shand's 
scheme.  One  may  cavil  at  his  inclusion  of  joy  and  sorrow  as 
primary  emotions  on  the  ground  of  Ribot's  objections  voiced 
years  ago,  that  common  pleasure  and  pain,  respectively,  could 
not  be  excluded  as  the  basis  of  these  emotions. 

Joy.  "None  whatever,"  she  says.  A  state  of  general 
"anhedonia,"  to  use  Ribot's  phrase,  prevails,  except  for  this 
vital  difference  that  there  is  not  a  general  depression  such  as  he 
described  in  his  cases.  The  big  sources  of  pleasure,  such  as — 
food,  warmth,  friendship,  love;  the  asthetic  sources — music,  the 
theatre,  art,  have  no  effect.  "I  go  to  a  musicale  out  of  habit, 
out  of  a  restless  seeking,  with  no  result. "  The  pleasures  of  antici- 
pation and  of  realization,  of  activity  and  of  relaxation,  the  little 
things  which  really  give  variety,  color  and  joy  to  life  have  disappeared. 

As  has  been  above  indicated  there  are  many  cases  where 
joy  and  pleasure  disappear.  In  the  depression  of  Manic  De- 
pressive Insanity,  in  the  fear  states,  in  the  anxiety  and  agitation 
of  Involutional  Melancholia,  and  in  deep  sorrow  or  great  worry 
the  capacity  for  enjoyment  vanishes.  But  another  emotion,  or 
group  of  emotions,  replaces  it,  in  fact,  the  individual  personality 
is  nothing  but  an  emotion. 

Most  extraordinary  was  the  reaction  to  fearful  objects. 
Once  when  she  was  on  a  lonely  road  an  automobile  came  sudden- 
ly hurling  on  her.  She  screamed  and  ran  to  one  side,  trembling; 
yet  there  was  no  fear  consciously,  it  was  as  if  someone  else  had 


Abraham  Myerson  245 


screamed.  The  cry,  the  flight  instinct  were  evoked  with  un- 
erring promptness,  but  the  "feeling"  was  gone.  Or  rather, 
phrasing  it  more  generally,  the  vaso-visceral,  the  motor  response 
was  good,  the  affective  reaction  was  absent. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  repeat  what  has  been  said  in 
relation  to  anger,  sorrow,  disgust,  curiosity,  wonder,  reverence — 
the  sentiments  love,  hate,  etc.  The  motor  side  of  all  these 
emotions  and  sentiments  is  present,  the  affective  is  gone.  "I 
am  as  in  a  dream,  an  automaton,  walking  without  joy  or  sorrow, 
though  I  laugh  and  cry  .  .  .  Yet  I  am  awake." 

A  very  curious  reaction  occurred  when  I  asked  her,  as  has 
been  previously  stated,  if  she  had  ever  had  sexual  intercourse. 
First  she  cried,  then  looked  at  me  with  set  mouth  and  cold 
eyes,  her  slender  body  held  erect — then  she  reproached  me  for 
asking  the  question.  "How  could  you  suspect  me;  why  did  you 
ask  it,"  she  repeated  over  and  over  again.  Her  attitude,  her 
tears,  her  voice  and  words  all  indicated  injured  pride,  anger, 
reproach,  yet  she  disclaimed  any  real  feeling. 

"Is  there  any  difference  between  when  you  cry  and  when 
you  laugh?" 

;'The  face  feels  different,  the  chest  feels  different,  but  I  am 
the  same." 

When  she  went  to  bid  the  man  she  loved  good-bye  just  be- 
fore he  left  as  a  soldier  to  France,  the  organic  electrical  sensations 
previously  experienced  were  gone.  She  cried,  but  yet  was  not 
sorry— "the  tears  came  of  themselves."  "I  do  not  wish  for 
his  return  nor  for  his  death.  I  have  neither  love  nor  hate.  I 
think  of  him  very  much,  much  more  than  of  anything  else,  ex- 
cept the  change  in  me."  Once  she  saw  a  company  of  soldiers 
with  heavy  packs  slung  on  their  backs,  rifles  over  their  shoulders, 
marching  behind  the  Flag.  The  grim  faces,  the  sturdy  khaki- 
clad  figures,  the  solemn  booming  drum,  the  banner  streaming 
in  the  breeze,  the  applause  of  the  people  brought  a  "lump" 
to  her  throat,  and  the  tears  stood  in  her  eyes  so  she  could  hardly 
see. 

What  should  be  touched  on  here,  is  the  absence  of  al- 
truistic interest  and  emotion.  It  is  common  enough  in  sorrow 
or  in  axniety  for  the  altruistic  interests  to  disappear.  Such 
people  as  in  the  case  of  the  tortured  housewife,  whom  I  have 
described  in  "The  Neurosis  of  the  Housewife,"  often  lose  the 
capacity  for  affection,  for  attachment  to  others.  Anxiety  and 
sorrow  have  more  often  rendered  the  character  more  egoistic 
than  added  to  its  altruism.  For  my  patient  affection  for  others 


246  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions 

is  not  felt.  Even  the  tender  feeling  which  connects  us  with  the 
weak  or  helpless,  especially  children,  is  not  present;  and  formerly 
she  "adored"  children.  She  carries  out  her  social  obligations, 
her  duties  from  habit,  and  a  perception  of  its  necessity;  she  acts 
automatically,  but  feels  no  dependence  upon  others,  nor  desire 
to  help  them. 

"Did  you  feel  patriotic  as  you  watched  the  men  march?" 
"No,  I  understood  what  was  going  on,  yet  felt  nothing." 
The  absence  of  the  affective  life  is  not  complete  because 
of  the  curious  fact  that  the  absence  is  essentially  something  dis- 
agreeable, an  intense  boredom.  "I  wish  I  were  depressed,  or 
had  a  great  grief,  anything  at  all.  I  would  like  a  little  pleasure, 
and  I  would  take  a  great  deal  of  grief  for  it.  I  don't  want  to  die 
because  being  dead  must  be  like  I  am  now."  The  absence  of 
the  familiar,  the  dissociation  between  manifestation  of  emotion 
and  the  entire  feeling  has  brought  a  persistent,  unending  inquiry 
into  the  course  of  it  all.  This  is  what  brought  her  to  the  clinic, 
she  came  primarily  to  find  out  what  the  matter  was.  "Had  she 
a  disease  of  the  sensory  nerves;  if  so,  how  came  it  that  she  felt 
pain  and  cold  and  touch?  Was  there  a  place  in  the  brain  where 
emotion  was  felt,  and  could  I  tell  if  she  had  had  a  hemorrhage 
that  night — five  years  ago?  Is  there  a  lesion  of  the  heart,  or 
of  her  body  organs,  that  may  be  discovered  and  remedied?" 
It  must  be  emphasized  that  there  are  none  of  the  ordinary 
signs  of  a  psychosis.  There  is  no  dementia,  and  no  hallucinations 
nor  delusions  are  to  be  elicited,  (unless  this  absence  of  feeling, 
this  apathia  is  delusional).  Once  I  thought  that  she  had  some 
idea  of  power,  because  she  said  that  if  one  really  loved  a  man 
sincerely  he  must  love  in  return;  but  this  proved  to  be  a  naivette, 
in  keeping  with  her  childish  voice  and  manner.  It  might  be 
claimed  that  she  is  pretending  that  she  has  no  feeling,  or  that  she 
deceives  herself.  As  to  the  former,  there  would  be  no  reason 
for  her  to  consult  a  clinic,  and  to  come  time  after  time  with  the 
same  story  and  never  to  change  nor  to  modify  her  statement. 
As  to  the  latter,  that  is — that  she  deceives  herself,  I  doubt  if  one 
can  deceive  oneself  that  one  has  no  feeling.  The  most  primary 
fact  in  consciousness  is  feeling,  and  self  deception  would  imply 
that  she  had  no  memory  for  her  feelings.  This  would  be  a 
localized  memory  defect,  just  as  remarkable  and  just  as  difficult 
to  explain  as  the  absence  of  feeling.  I  am  convinced  from 
observing  her,  and  from  all  the  setting  of  the  case,  that  she  is 
sincere,  and  her  account  is  precisely  such  as  would  occur  if  there 


Abraham  Myerson  247 


were  a  possible  dissociation  of  feeling  from  motor  manifestations 
and  situations. 

At  her  last  visit  she  happened  to  get  hold  of  her  record  and 
read  it.  Since  then  she  has  not  appeared,  and  it  is  possible  that 
the  fact  that  her  case  was  being  minutely  recorded  made  her 
determined  not  to  come  again.  At  any  rate,  so  her  case  stands 
at  present.  Her  main  purpose  is  to  recover  her  feelings,  her 
emotions,  so  that  she  may  again  love  the  man  she  has  been 
denied,  so  that  she  may  again  feel  hunger,  thirst  and  fatigue,  as 
well  as  pleasure  at  a  concert,  or  the  joys  of  satisfaction.  It  will 
be  objected  that  no  psychoanalysis  has  been  carried  out,  no 
hidden  sub-conscious  emotional  life  uncovered,  no  complexes, 
perhaps  dating  back  to  infancy,  have  been  disclosed  as  dissociat- 
ing the  personality.  My  answer  is  that  I  have  not  had  the  time 
to  attempt  this,  had  I  had  the  inclination.  I  am  one  of  those 
who  am  not  convinced  that  the  technique  of  psychoanalysis— 
the  so-called  free  association  method,  which  assumes  that  free 
associations  are  possible),  or  that  the  interpretation  of  dreams 
have  the  value  that  have  been  given  to  them  in  recent  years. 
I  frankly  confess  that  I  do  not  believe  in  complexes  which 
operate  from  childhood  on,  though  I  am  a  strong  believer  in 
personality  trends,  disproportionate  emotions  and  visceral  reac- 
tions, altered  or  absent  inhibitions,  wrongly  directed  or  mis- 
taken purposes,  and  imperfect  or  disharmonious  intelligence. 
These  are  the  factors  which  determine  conduct  to  me,  and  the 
minutiae  of  life  are  fruits  of  these  things  rather  than  their 
causes. 

THEORETICAL   CONSIDERATIONS 

The  following  psychiatric  conditions  constitute  the  main 
groups  in  which  change  in  emotions  is  conspicuous.  Paragraph 
First,  those  in  which  there  is  quick  change  from  the  exagger- 
ated expression  of  one  type  of  emotion  to  another.  For 
example, — in  Hysteria,  from  tears  and  sorrow  to  laughter  and 
apparent  joy.  Here  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  feeling  tone 
corresponds  to  the  expression.  Most  observers  believe  there  is  a 
shallowness  of  emotion  as  compared  with  the  exaggerated  ex- 
pression. In  children,  of  course,  there  is  extremely  rapid 
oscillation  from  one  emotion  to  another,  because  there  are  no 
controlling  reservoirs  of  feeling.  Paragraph  Second,  those 
conditions  from  which  the  change  from  normal  is  of  periodic 
predominance  of  one  or  another  mood.  The  depression  in  the 


248  A  Case  of  Altered  Emotions 

corresponding  phase  of  Manic  Depressive  Insanity  to  its  excite- 
ment or  exhilaration,  or  a  cycle,  with  first  one  and  then  the 
other.  This  so-called,  "Cyclothymia"  seems  on  the  whole  to 
be  accompanied  by  adequate  feeling  tone,  and,  as  is  well  known, 
is  often  associated  with  ideational  trends,  that  is — delusions 
corresponding  to  the  mood,  and  often  perceptional  disturbances, 
such  as — illusions  and  hallucinations. 

Third,  a  group  of  cases  where  joyful  or  pleasurable  feeling  is 
absent.  The  "anhedonia"  of  Ribot,  often  found  in  the  Psycho- 
neuroses  (Cyclothymic  type),  without  delusions  and  without 
hallucinations,  with  insight,  without  very  deep  depression, 
though  with  a  great  deal  of  rather  sad,  restless,  worrisome  think- 
ing. This  type  of  disease  is  often  accompanied  by  a  loss  in  the 
feeling  of  reality.  There  is,  what  I  have  called  above  "circular 
thinking,"  a  wearying  around  of  thoughts  that  goes  almost 
automatically,  and  tends  to  become  independent  of  the  person- 
ality. The  expression  of  emotion  is  adequate,  but  mostly 
corresponds  to  what  may,  by  a  stretching  of  the  word,  be  called 
emotion  of  weariness  or  discouragement. 

Fourth,  there  is  the  apathy,  or  lack  of  interest  in  things 
psychic,  of  Dementia  Praecox.  But  here  there  is  this  funda- 
mental difference  from  the  case  here  cited,  and  that  is  there  is  no 
expression  of  emotion  and  no  recognition  of  the  external  world. 
Fear  is  not  expressed  because  fear  is  not  felt,  and  there  is  no 
laughter  nor  tears  because  apparently  there  is  neither  joy  nor 
sorrow.  The  individual  has  withdrawn  himself  from  the  world, 
to  the  shell-bound  mood  we  call  apathy. 

Fifth,  a  group  of  cases  where  with  organic  brain  disease,  with 
injury  to  the  basal  nuclei,  there  is  uncontrollable  and  spasmodic 
laughing  and  crying  without  other  internal  feeling  or  any  event 
or  thought  to  evoke  the  emotions.  It  is  this  group  of  diseases 
that  has  given  rise  to  the  theory  that  the  seat  of  the  expression 
of  the  emotions  is  in  or  around  the  optic  thalamus  or  the  len- 
ticuler  nocleus. 

Sixth,  the  case  I  have  described  is  of  a  type  which  I  do  not 
find  in  the  literature,  though  I  confess  I  have  not  extensively 
searched  through  it.  What  seems  to  me  important  is  that  the 
emotional  expression  seems  reflexly  excited  by  the  environment, 
and  conduct  in  more  or  less  adequate  conformity  to  the  outward 
event  occurs,  and  yet  no  feeling  results.  It  seems,  as  one 
searches  into  every  day  life,  that  it  frequently  occurs  in  incom- 
plete measure,  that  emotional  expression  and  conduct  are  out  of 
harmony  with  inner  feeling.  One  frequently  has  a  lump  in  the 


Abraham  Myerson  249 


throat,  and  tears  in  the  eyes  without  real  sorrow,  one  often  has 
the  chilly  feeling  and  weakness  of  fear  without  the  so  called  fear. 
Men  sometimes  instinctively  fly  at  a  sound  or  rush  to  combat  at 
sight  of  a  foe,  before  they  feel  either  fear  or  anger.  In  other 
words,  though  the  vaso-visceral  manifestations,  the  instinctive 
conduct,  and  the  affective  accompaniments  are  usually  firmly 
linked  together,  they  need  not  be,  and  this  case  is  one  of  per- 
menent  dissociation  of  affectivity  from  the  other  links  of  emotion* 
We  may  regard  emotion  in  something  the  following  man- 
ner— an  outward  phenomenon  stimulating  sense  organs  distri- 
butes its  effects  as  follows:  (1)  Certain  motor  mechanisms  are 
released  or  tend  to  be  released,  unless  inhibited.  These  are 
either  reflexive  or  instinctive  motor  mechanisms.  (2)  Simul- 
taneously, or  nearly  so,  there  is  a  vaso-visceral  excitation,  causing 
changes  in  heart,  pulse  pressure,  respiration,  vaso-motion, 
adrenalin  distribution,  visceral  tone,  which  I  have  called  here 
the  vaso-visceral  part  of  the  emotion.  (3)  There  is  a  cerebral 
excitation,  arousing  memory  centres,  inhibition  centres,  and  the 
cerebral  organs  of  higher  function,  which  tend  either  to  further 
the  "natural"  instinctive  or  reflexive  conduct,  or  else  to  modify 
or  inhibit  it.  (4)  As  a  result  possibly  of  all  these  processes,  but 
more  likely  mostly  related  to  the  vaso-visceral  changes,  the 
affective  reaction  arises,  the  feeling  proper.  It  is  very  possible 
that  for  the  particular  occasion  the  feeling  has  no  relation  to  the 
immediate  conduct  but  it  is  the  supreme  measure  of  value  for  the 
personality  and  thus  becomes  the  guide,  through  its  effect  on  en- 
suing cerebration,  to  future  conduct.  Though  possibly  an  epi- 
phenomenon  in  so  far  as  its  immediate  value  is  concerned  it  be- 
comes the  thing  lived  for. 

*It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  the  psuedo-affective  reflexes  of  Sherrington  have  some 
bearing  on  altered  emotional  states.  It  is  hardly  safe  to  draw  conclusions  from  the  emotions  of 
animals,  largely  because  we  have  no  definite  means  of  understanding  what  they  feel.  In  fact, 
we  are  able  to  study  nothing  but  the  expression  of  their  emotions.  In  the  experimental  animal 
especially,  changes  are  set  up  which  are  at  least  in  part  totally  unknown  to  us.  Indeed  the  very 
word  "psuedoaffective"  emphasizes  the  fact  that  possibly  we  are  dealing  with  something  only 
resembling  emotions. 


BY  JOHN  T.  MACCURDY,  M.  D. 

ALTHOUGH  it  is  only  in  recent  years  that  the  problem 
has  been  scientifically  studied,  psychiatrists  for  genera- 
tions have  recognized  that  there  is  a  tendency  for 
similar  ideas  to  present  themselves  in  the  delusions  of 
the  insane.  In  fact,  this  relative  uniformity  is  one  of  the 
phenomena  which  aid  in  classifying  psychoses  and  bring  some 
order  into  our  conceptions  of  what  would  otherwise  be  a  lawless 
confusion.  A  more  startling  discovery  is  now  a  commonplace 
with  students  of  mythology  and  folk  lore:  primitive  rituals, 
savage  traditions,  modern  superstitions,  all  concern  them- 
selves with  themes  so  much  alike  as  to  be  almost  identical 
even  in  detail;  a  uniformity  independent  of  geographic  or 
temporal  contact.  Finally,  to  correlate  these  facts,  appears  the 
modern  doctrine  of  the  unconscious,  which  asserts  that  these 
imaginings  are  part  of  all  of  us,  savage  or  civilized,  sane  or 
insane,  and  that  "autistic"  thought  can  run  in  certain  channels 
only.  How  far  this  dogma  may  be  scientifically  grounded  in 
fact  is  a  problem  whose  solution  demands  extensive  research. 
This  much,  at  least,  is  certain:  it  is  a  question  in  which  psychiatry 
is  vitally  interested,  for  refinement  in  diagnosis  is  bound  to  rest 
more  and  more  on  the  content  of  the  productions  of  the  insane. 
In  drawing  a  parallel  between  the  sagas  of  Hamlet  and 
Orestes,  Murray  has  done  nothing  new.  Rank2  pointed  this 
out  two  years  before.  For  psychiatrists  the  interest  of  his  work 
lies  in  his  treatment  of  the  subject  and  in  its  being  done  inde- 
pendently3. Particularly  noteworthy  is  the  prominence  he 
gives  to  the  madness  of  these  traditional  heroes. 

He  says  that  his  problem  '  .  .  .  concerns  the  inter- 
action of  two  elements  in  Literature,  and  especially  in  Drama, 
which  is  a  very  primitive  and  instinctive  kind  of  literature:  I 
mean  the  two  elements  of  tradition  and  invention,  or  the  un- 
conscious and  the  conscious."  Obviously  Murray  is  regarding 
the  question  from  a  frankly  psychological  standpoint,  and  so, 
naturally,  he  proceeds  to  prove  that  the  essentials  of  Shakes- 
peare's Hamlet  were  present  in  English  literature  before  the 

'Hamlet  and  Orestes:  A  Study  of  Traditional  Types,  by  Gilbert  Murray.  The  Annual 
Shakespeare  Lecture  (1914)  of  the  British  Academy,  published  by  the  Oxford  University  Press, 
American  Branch,  New  York. 

8Das  Inzest-Motiv  in  Dichtung  u.  Saga,  Vienna,  1912. 

8  Personal  communication. 

250 


John  T.  MacCurdy  251 


dramatist's  time,  and  had  been  Scandinavian  tradition  for 
centuries.  Orestes  was,  of  course,  a  fabulous  hero,  even  in 
Homer's  time,  whose  tale  was  wrought  into  various  tragedies 
by  the  Greek  dramatists,  just  as  Shakespeare  used  the  Hamlet 
saga  as  the  ground  work  for  his  play.  There  are,  therefore,  two 
phenomena  to  be  correlated:  the  similarity  of  the  basic  myths 
(there  being  no  contact  between  the  early  Greeks  and  the 
primitive  Northmen)  and  the  similarity  of  the  details  in  the 
Greek  and  English  tragedies. 

The  essential  identity  of  the  two  heroes  is  next  outlined. 
As  to  the  general  situation:  "In  all  the  versions,  both  Northern 
and  Greek,  the  hero  is  the  son  of  a  King  who  has  been  murdered 
and  succeeded  on  the  throne  by  a  younger  kinsman  .... 
The  dead  King's  wife  has  married  his  murderer.  The  hero, 
driven  by  supernatural  commands,  undertakes  and  carries 
through  the  duty  of  vengeance."  There  is  always  a  shyness 
about  killing  the  mother  as  part  of  this  vengeance.  "In  all  the 
versions  the  hero  is  in  some  way  under  the  shadow  of  madness. 
This  is  immensely  important,  indeed  essential,  in  his  whole 
dramatic  character." 

We  are  particularly  interested  in  this  phase,  so  it  may  be 
well  to  quote  the  salient  features  of  this  psychosis.  "His 
language  is  strange  and  broken  ...  he  is  a  haunted 
man,  ...  he  sees  visions  which  others  cannot  .  .  . 
he  indulges  freely  in  soliloquies,  ...  he  is  subject  to 
paralyzing  doubts  and  hesitations,  alternating  with  hot  fits." 
In  the  Hamlet  of  the  sagas  there  is  a  pretence  of  being  a  "fool." 
In  this  "fool"  the  symptoms  are  grossly  represented,  but  can 
all  be  traced  in  the  Orestes  or  Hamlet  of  the  dramatists.—  "He 
is  simply  a  Fool,  a  gross  Jester,  covered  with  dirt  and  ashes, 
grinning  and  mowing  and  eating  like  a  hog  .  .  .  He 

.  .  .  "laughs  in  pretended  idiocy  to  see  his  brother  hanged," 
.  .  .  .  "remained  always  in  his  mother's  home,  utterly 
listless  and  unclean,  flinging  himself  on  the  ground  and  bespatter- 
ing his  person  with  foul  dirt."  "Besides  being  dirty  and  talk- 
ing in  riddles,  the  Fool  was  abusive  and  gross  in  his  language 
.  .  .  [His]  language  is  habitually  outrageous,  especially  to 
women.  This  outrageousness  of  speech  has  clearly  descended 
to  Hamlet,  in  whom  it  seems  to  be  definitely  intended  as  a  mor- 
bid trait.  He  is  obsessed  by  revolting  images.  He  does 

Like  a  whore  unpack  his  heart  in  words 
And  fall  a-cursing  like  a  very  drab, 


Concerning  Hamlet  and  Orestes 


and  he  rages  at  himself  because  of  it.  " 

Seclusiveness  and  sex  antagonism  mark  both  the  make-up 
and  psychoses  of  these  psychopathic  heroes.  Both  Hamlet  and 
Orestes  are  prone  to  be  cynical  about  women.  Orestes  denies 
blood  relationship  with  his  mother.  "Both  heroes  also  tend  —  if 
I  may  use  such  an  expression  —  to  bully  any  woman  they  are  left 
alone  with.  Amlodi  in  Saxo  [an  early  Hamlet]  mishandles  his 
foster-sister  ....  and  utters  violent  reproaches  to  the 
Queen  .  .  .  Hamlet  bullies  Ophelia  cruelly  and  "speaks 
daggers"  to  the  Queen.  He  never  meets  any  other  woman. 
Orestes  is  very  surly  to  Iphigenia:  draws  his  sword  on  Electra 
in  one  play,  and  takes  her  for  a  devil  in  another;  holds  his  dagger 
at  the  throat  of  Hermione  till  she  faints;  denounces,  threatens 
and  kills  Clytemnestra  and  tries  to  kill  Helen.  There  are  not 
many  tragic  heroes  with  such  an  extreme  anti-feminist  record.  " 

Later  in  his  paper  Murray  mentions  that  the  Hamlets  of  the 
sagas  slept  in  their  mothers'  chambers. 

If  these  heroes  were  "seclusive"  as  far  as  women  were  con- 
cerned, this  attitude  did  not  extend  to  those  of  the  same  sex. 
Murray  does  not  fail  to  note  that  both  Hamlet  and  Orestes  had 
warm  men  friends  to  whom  they  were  devoted. 

These  descriptions  are  those  of  laymen.  How  would  a 
modern  psychiatrist  describe  this  accumulation  of  symptoms? 
In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  make-up.  The  hero  is  definitely 
seclusive,  keeps  at  home,  sleeping  in  his  mother's  chamber  and 
makes  no  friends  with  the  opposite  sex.  More  than  that,  he  is 
actively  antagonistic  to  women,  but  has  one  strong  male  friend. 
The  factor  which  seems  to  precipitate  the  more  active  psychotic 
features  of  the  disease  is  a  family  tragedy  —  the  death  of  the 
patient's  father.  In  the  psychosis  the  symptoms  are  as  follows: 
he  hallucinates,  often  with  a  grossly  sexual  content,  and  has  ideas 
of  reference,  is  "scattered"  in  his  speech,  has  inappropriate 
affect,  sits  by  himself  and  talks  to  himself,  shows  queer  behavior 
with  sudden,  unexplainable  assaultiveness  ;  finally,  he  is  filthy  in 
his  habits. 

No  one  could  miss  the  diagnosis  of  dementia  praecox  when 
the  symptoms  are  outlined  in  these  terms,  and,  even  as  given  by 
Murray,  the  clinical  picture  is  more  plainly  presented  than  in 
many  anamneses.  We  find  every  symptom  necessary  to  a 
diagnosis,  and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  none  that  do  not  fit 
the  diagnosis. 

Further  similarities  between  the  two  heroes  appear  in  both 


John  T.  MacCurdy  253 


being  away  from  home  when  the  initial  murder  occurs,  in  both 
having  escapes  from  death  at  sea  and  in  both  being  "a  good  deal 
connected  with  the  dead  and  graves  and  ghosts  and  funerals." 
[These  are  characteristics  to  which  we  shall  return  later.] 

The  other  characters  in  the  plays  are  also  parallelled  by 
Shakespeare  and  the  Greek  dramatists.  The  father  in  each 
case  is  "idealized  and  made  magnificent."  With  many  charac- 
teristics in  common  one  can  say  that  he  is  (to  the  hero,  at  least,) 
a  superman.  Common  to  the  two  situations  is  the  father's 
burial  without  religious  rites,  and  that  his  spirit  returns  or  is 
summoned  by  the  survivors.  [This  might  be  compared  to  the 
importance  of  a  parent  in  the  psychosis,  who  is  equally  imminent 
whether  actually  living  or  dead.] 

The  mother  in  the  Hamlet  stories  is  a  curious  woman  who 
loves  her  husband,  is  vaguely  implicat  d  in  his  murder,  marries 
the  murderer  and  yet  is  sympathetic  to  her  first  husband's 
avenger.  The  identity  of  the  characters  in  the  two  myths  ends  at 
this  point,  but  Murray  elaborates  a  parallel  by  introducing  a 
cycle  of  usurpation  plots,  of  which  Orestes  is  an  offshoot,  where 
the  mother  has  more  of  these  characteristics.  In  one  of  these 
the  riddle  is  told — Oedipus  marries  his  mother  when  the  father 
is  slain. 

"I  feel  as  I  look  at  these  two  tragedies  that  there  must  be 
a  connection  somewhere  .  .  .  There  is  none  between  the 
dramas,  nor  even  directly  between  the  sagas;  but  can  there  be 
some  original  connection  between  the  myths,  or  the  primitive 
religious  rituals,  on  which  the  dramas  are  ultimately  based? 
And  can  it  be  that  the  ultimate  similarities  between  Euripides 
and  Shakespeare  are  simply  due  to  the  natural  working  out,  by 
playwrights  of  special  genius,  of  the  dramatic  possibilities  latent 
in  that  original  seed?" 

This  "original  seed"  he  finds  in  the  early  Greek  or  pre- 
Greek  legends  of  Ouranos,  who  was  cast  out  by  his  son  Kronos, 
the  latter  being  helped  by  his  father's  wife  Gaia,  and  of  Kronos 
being  in  turn  ejected  by  Zeus  with  the  aid  of  his  Queen  mother 
Rhea.  The  same  fate  was  predicted  for  Zeus  if  he  married 
Thetis,  which  he  discreetly  refrained  from  doing.  "In  the 
above  cases  the  new  usurper  is  represented  as  the  son  of  the  old 
King  and  Queen.  Consequently  the  Queen-mother,  though  she 
helps  him,  does  not  marry  him,  as  she  does  when  he  is  merely 
a  younger  kinsman.  But  there  is  one  great  saga  in  which  the 
marriage  of  mother  and  son  has  remained,  quite  unsoftened  and 
unexpurgated.  In  Thebes,  King  Laius  and  his  wife  Jocosta 


254  Concerning  Hamlet  and  Orestes 

knew  that  their  son  would  slay  and  dethrone  his  father.  Laius 
orders  the  son's  death,  but  he  is  saved  by  the  Queen-mother, 
and,  after  slaying  and  dethroning  his  father,  marries  her.  She 
is  afterwards  slain  or  dethroned  with  him,  as  Clytemnestra  is 
with  Aegisthus,  and  Gertrude  with  Claudius." 

Murray  has  no  hesitancy  in  allying  these  usurpation  myths 
with  "the  ritual  story  of  what  we  may  call  the  Golden  Bough 
Kings,"  a  story  that  lies  at  the  root  of  many  religions.  These 
divinities,  as  Frazer  has  shown,  are  personifications  of  the 
seasons.  A  Greek  scholar,  Hermann  Usener,  identified  Orestes 
as  a  Winter  God  some  years  ago.  Murray  then  adduces  evidence 
to  show  that  Hamlet  and  his  precursors  were  heroes  in  a  mytholo- 
gy with  similar  ritual  ideas.  The  wife-mother  is  no  other  than 
Mother  Earth,  who  marries  Spring,  is  fruitful  in  Summer, 
only  to  be  carried  off  by  the  Interloper  Winter — the  God  of 
Death.  Having  reached  this  conclusion,  he  discovers  that  a 
number  of  Norse  mythologists  had  already  identified  Hamlet 
with  Winter  and  his  story  with  "the  world-wide  ritual  battle 
of  Summer  and  Winter."  Murray  smooths  over  the  horror  of 
the  incest  motif  running  through  these  myths  by  saying  it  is 
only  natural  for  Mother  Earth  to  remarry. 

In  his  conclusions,  he  says  there  seems  to  be  "  ...  a 
great  unconscious  solidarity  and  continuity,  lasting  from  age 
to  age,  among  all  the  Children  of  the  Poets,  both  the  Makers  and 
the  Callers-forth,  both  the  artists  and  the  audiences.  In  artistic 
creation,  as  in  all  the  rest  of  life,  the  traditional  element  is  far 
larger,  the  purely  inventive  element  far  smaller,  than  the  un- 
sophisticated man  supposes. "  Second,  he  claims  that  in  spite 
of  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  settings,  a  basic  theme  shows  an 
extraordinary  durability  when  kept  alive  by  tradition.  These 
themes  stir  "certain  very  deep-rooted  human  instincts."  It  is 
for  this  reason,  he  thinks,  that  any  creative  work  with  such  a 
motif  awakens  a  kind  of  recognition  even  in  us—  .  .  . 
there  is  something  which  tells  us  we  have  known  them  always. " 
Finally,  he  touches  on  one  aspect  of  the  problem  which  is  of 
intense  interest  to  psychiatrists,  viz.,  the  relation  which  the 
settings  of  the  original  theme  have  to  reality.  In  each  age  the 
story  told  is  acceptable  to  the  hearer  as  "The  Sort  of  Thing  that 
Might  Happen."  [This  recalls  the  fact  that  where  the  sense 
of  reality  is  lost,  we  have,  in  some  psychoses,  delusions  that  are 
almost  identical  with  beliefs  accepted  in  bygone  generations.] 
The  essence  of  literary  art  he  finds  to  lie  in  "  .  .  .  the  power 
of  preserving  due  proportion  between  these  opposite  elements — 


John  T.  MacCurdy  255 


the  expression  of  boundless  primitive  emotion  and  the  subtle  and 
delicate  representation  of  life." 

If  we  accept  this  last  formulation,  we  can  see  why  artistic 
creation  is  so  often  allied  to  abnormality;  let  the  primitive 
emotion  gain  the  upper  hand,  let  the  feeling  for  reality  once  re- 
lax, and  we  have,  not  genius,  but  insanity. 

It  would  be  wrong,  however,  to  glean  only  this  wide  general- 
ization from  Murray's  essay,  and  one  cannot  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  comment  further.  As  has  been  mentioned,  the  occur- 
rence of  the  "Oedipus  complex"  in  both  Hamlet  and  Orestes  has 
been  studied  before.  Murray  introduces  two  new  ideas:  that 
Death  is  a  prominent  feature  in  both  tragedies:  and  that  both 
hark  back  to  the  ritual  battle  of  Summer  and  Winter.  Whether 
the  latter  is  the  original  basis  of  the  Oedipus  myth,  or  whether 
incestuous  longings  are  themselves  primary,  will  probably  re- 
main a  subject  for  polemical  discussion  during  many  years. 
The  ideas  of  death  are  certainly  of  more  direct  interest  to  the 
psychiatrist. 

Murray  seems  to  be  interested  only  in  the  death  motif  as 
associated  with  the  hero.  His  conclusion  is  that  he  is  Death 
himself,  that  he  appears,  a  powerful  avenger,  after  a  symbolic 
death  (supposed  to  be  absent  or  dead  by  the  other  characters). 
The  association  of  horrible  power  with  the  dead  is  common  in 
crude  ghost  stories,  and  frequently  appears  in  tales  of  mystery 
where  the  malignant  agent  turns  out  in  the  denouement  to  be 
one  who  has  been  considered  dead.  This  approaches  the  idea  of 
rebirth  with  new  power  which  is  met  with  not  infrequently  in 
the  psychoses. (4)  It  is  surprising  that  Murray  fails  to  comment 
on  the  fact  that  the  most  dynamic  character  in  both  the  Hamlet 
and  Orestes  dramas  is  the  dead  father. 

Death  is  a  thought  of  no  less  influence  in  our  unconscious 
than  in  our  conscious  lives,  though  it  is  more  often  welcomed 
in  the  latter  than  in  the  former.  One  form  of  the  unconscious: 
idea  is  of  great  importance  both  to  criminology  and  psychiatry: 
it  precipitates  many  double  tragedies — murder  and  suicide — and 
is  often  present  in  connection  with  stupors.5  This  is  the  un- 
conscious fantasy  of  "dying  together,"  of  leaving  the  difficulties 
of  this  world  for  an  eternal  union  in  the  carefree  beyond.  In 

4  In  Vol.  VIII,  No.  6,  of  the  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology, the  reviewer  published  an  example 
of  this.  The  patient  announced  to  his  friends  that  he  was  Rip  Van  Winkle  come  back  to  life, 
whereupon  he  developed  a  manic-like  state  in  which  he  gave  utterance  to  delusions  of  great  and 
picturesque  power. 

'For  material  as  to  the  stupor  reactions,  the  reader  is  referred  to  a  study  to  be  published 
shortly  by  Dr.  August  Hoch  and  Dr.  George  E.  Kirby. 


256  Concerning  Hamlet  and  Orestes 

real  life  the  murdered  victim  is  usually  a  mistress,  sometimes  a 
wife;  in  the  psychosis  it  is  the  mother  (or,  with  a  woman,  the 
father).  A  psychiatrist  seeing  Hamlet  well  given  cannot  fail 
to  be  impressed  with  the  air  of  solemn  ecstasy  pervading  the 
last  scene  when  Gertrude  and  then  Hamlet  die.  He  recalls,  too, 
that  Hamlet  insists  on  getting  into  Ophelia's  grave.  This  mood 
of  ecstasy  is  a  frequent  accompaniment  of  the  idea  of  heavenly 
union  when  this  occurs  in  the  psychosis. 

But  if  we  wish  to  find  elaboration  of  this  theme  we  must 
turn  to  Orestes.  We  read  in  Aeschylus  that  Electra  and  the 
chorus  speak  frequently  of  the  life  Orestes  is  to  lead  after  killing 
his  mother.  The  hero  never  does  this;  on  the  contrary  he  says: 
"And  for  that  dishonouring  she  shall  pay  her  punishment:  by 
the  will  of  the  Gods,  by  the  will  of  my  hands:  oh,  let  me  but 
slay,  and  then  perish!"  He  kills  her  and  goes  abruptly  into  a 
psychosis,  the  nature  of  which  is  well  described.  But  the  theme 
is  not  exhausted.  After  his  recovery6  he  and  his  sister  talk  of 
dying  together  and  being  buried  in  one  tomb ;  he  compares  their 
embrace  to  the  farewell  of  husband  and  wife.  He  tries  to  kill 
Helen,  who  is  snatched  away  by  the  Gods.  Then  he  holds 
Hermione  as  a  hostage  with  a  dagger  at  her  throat.  Apollo 
appears  and  announces 

"Hermione,  at  whose  throat  is  thy  sword, 
Orestes,  is  thy  destined  bride." 
to  which  he  answers 

"Lo,  from  the  sword  Hermione  I  release, 

And  pledge,  when  her  father  bestows,  to  wed,"7 

With  such  a  love  of  death  it  is  not  unnatural  he  should 
cheerfully  wed  the  woman  he  was  about  to  kill.  It  is  not 
uninteresting  to  note  that  "Hermione"  was  the  surname  of 
Persephone  in  Syracuse, — Persephone,  the  Greek  prototype  of 
the  divinity  of  Summer,  who  is  carried  off  to  live  during  the 
Winter  in  the  underworld.  Orestes  then  is  Hermione's  Pluto. 

Now  what  of  his  psychosis?  There  is  considerable  des- 
cription given  and  this  is  unequivocally  that  of  a  stupor! 

Electra. — 

Sleepless  I  sit  beside  a  wretched  corpse: 
For,  but  for  faintest  breath,  a  corpse  he  is. 

"Euripides'  Orestes,  lines  1037-1055. 

'Translation  of  A.  S.  Way,  as  are  the  following  quotations. 


John  T.  MacCurdy  257 


Helen. — 

How  long  hath  he  so  lain  upon  his  couch? 
Electra. — 

Ever  since  he  spilt  the  blood  of  her  that  bare  him  [Six  days.] 


Electra. — 

So  long  is  it  since  he  hath  stilled  him  in  sleep  to  lie. 
Chorus.— 

How  is  it  with  him?     .     .     . 
Electra.— 

Yet  doth  he  breathe,  but  his  moans  wax  weak. 
(In  the  lines  following  this,  ELECTRA  expresses  a  fear  that  the 
"wild  outcry"  of  the  CHORUS  will  wake  her  brother.     He  stirs 
slightly,  but  the  CHORUS  repeatedly  points  out  to  her  that  he  con- 
tinues to  sleep.} 
Electra. — 

vouchsafe  the  grace 

Of  the  peace  of  sleep  to  his  resting  place. 
Chorus.— 

Tell,  what  end  waiteth  his  misery? 
Electra. — 

Even  to  die, — what  else  should  be? 

For  he  knoweth  not  even  craving  for  food. 
Chorus.— 

Look,  maid  Electra,  who  art  at  his  side, 

Lest  this  thy  brother  unawares  have  died. 

So  utter-nerveless,  stirless,  likes  me  not. 

At  this  point  when  he  is  thought  to  have,  perhaps,  died, 
Orestes  awakes,  grateful  for  his  sleep,  but  disoriented  and 
amnesic. — 

.     .     Whence  came  I  hitherward? — how  found  this  place? 
For  I  forget:  past  thoughts  are  blotted  out. 

The  stupor  was  apparently  "interrupted"  for  in  one  passage 
Electra  says: 

And  to  this  day,  the  sixth  since  cleansing  fire 
Enwrapped  the  murdered  form,  his  mother's  corse, 
Morsel  of  food  his  lips  have  not  received, 


258  Concerning  Hamlet  and  Orestes 

Nor  hath  he  bathed  his  flesh;  but  in  his  cloak 
Now  palled,  when  he  from  torment  respite  hath, 
With  brain  unclouded  weeps,  now  from  his  couch 
Frenzied  with  wild  feet  bounds  like  steed  unyoked. 

Even  when  he  is  free  from  the  stupor,  death  clings  to  him. 
He  leaves  his  bed  and  meets  Menalaus— 
Menalaus — Gods!     What  see  I?     What  ghost  do  I  behold? 
Orestes.— 

A  ghost  indeed — through  woes  a  death-in-life! 
Menalaus. — 

How  wild  thy  matted  locks  are,  hapless  one! 
Orestes. — 

Stern  fact,  not  outward  seeming,  tortures  me! 
Menalaus. — 

Fearfully  glarest  thou  with  stony  eyes! 
Orestes. — 

My  life  is  gone:  my  name  alone  is  left. 

Except  for  its  literary  trappings  one  might  expect  to  meet 
this  description  and  these  data  in  a  contemporary  history  of  a 
well  observed  case.  Similarly,  as  we  have  observed,  Murray 
paints  a  composite  picture  of  the  make-up  and  insanity  of  the 
individual  who  has  incest  ideas,  and  this  picture  we  can  recognize 
as  that  of  dementia  praecox  with  any  other  psychosis  pretty 
definitely  excluded.  Here,  then,  is  a  curious  phenomenon:  a 
thousand  years  and  more  before  the  appearance  of  psychiatric 
classifications,  minstrels  and  dramatists  ally  clinical  pictures 
and  mental  content  with  an  accuracy  which  it  is  only  now  our 
ambition  to  achieve  scientifically.  Two  explanations  are  con- 
ceivable. First,  that  the  poet  has  seen  such  psychoses  and  noted 
the  content  which  he  faithfully  represents.  This  hypothesis 
can  probably  be  eliminated  at  once,  for,  as  Murray  remarks: 
".  .  .  .  to  observe  exactly,  and  to  remember  and  report 
exactly,  is  one  of  the  very  latest  and  rarest  of  human  accom- 
plishments. .  .  .  Early  man  was  at  the  time  too  excited  to 
observe,  and  afterwards  too  indifferent  to  record,  and  always 
too  much  beset  by  fixed  forms  of  thought  ever  to  take  in  concrete 
facts  exactly." 

The  second  explanation  is  startling  but,  apparently,  the  only 
possible  one.  It  is  that  there  is  some  basic,  unconscious  con- 
nection between  ideas  of  a  given  type  and  the  insanity  that 
accompanies  such  ideas.  The  evidence  of  this  correlation  goes 


John  T.  MacCurdy  259 


farther  than  the  coincidence  of  given  ideas  with  the  more  or  less 
stereotyped  psychotic  reactions.  The  author  whose  inspiration 
comes  from  a  source  beyond  his  ken,  groups  the  symptoms  of 
dementia  praecox  about  the  hero  whose  career  is  dominated  by 
incestuous  tendencies,  or  paints  a  stupor  when  he  longs  to  die 
with  the  one  whom  he  loves  most  deeply.  Can  we  escape  the 
conclusion  that  the  dementia  praecox  or  stupor  reaction  lies 
latent  in  the  normal  man  and  is  bound  to  the  incest  or  death 
idea?  Can  these  ideas  come  to  consciousness  as  dramatic  in- 
ventions without  the  setting  of  the  appropriate  psychoses  any 
more  than  these  thoughts  can  appear  as  delusions  divorced  from 
dementia  praecox  or  stupor?  It  may  be  objected  that  we  fre- 
quently make  a  diagnosis  of  dementia  praecox  without  recording 
an  obviously  "Oedipus"  content.  True,  but  we  are  here  dis- 
cussing broad  tendencies  and  we  now  know  pretty  definitely 
that  the  severity  of  this  disease  is  roughly  parallelled  by  the 
baldness  with  which  the  forbidden  theme  appears  in  the  patient's 
productions. 

Psychology  has  not  advanced  to  a  point  where  it  can  ex- 
plain such  correlations  with  any  finality,  but  an  attempt  may 
be  made  to  rationalize  them.  To  begin  with  the  simpler — the 
stupor — problem.  The  patient  who  fancies  himself  dead  may 
dramatize  that  thought  and  so  produce  the  symptoms  of  stupor — 
a  rather  hysterical  mechanism.  It  is  not  hard  to  imagine  the 
author  representing  such  behavior  in  the  hero.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  death  idea  and  the  death  behavior,  so  to  speak,  may 
both  be  the  product  of  the  same  desire,  namely,  to  escape  from 
the  torments  or  task  of  continued  existence.  In  this  case  the 
desire  to  be  done  with  it  all  appears  as  the  delusion  of  death,  and 
at  the  same  time  all  interest  is  withdrawn  from  the  environment, 
normal  stimuli  cease  to  cause  a  response  and  a  condition  results 
which  looks  like  death.  Cheap  people  faint  and  cheap  authors 
tell  of  fainting,  to  avoid  some  simple,  immediate  situation. 
The  genius  realizes  that  conscious  contacts  with  a  world  full  of 
irritation  cannot  be  maintained  and  breaks  those  contacts. 
He  represents  his  hero  as  failing  to  respond  to  any  common 
stimulus,  and  depicts  a  stupor. 

The  situation  with  the  dementia  praecox  patient  or  hero 
may  be  similarly  explained.  Incest  ideas  have  become  through 
the  ages  and  for  obvious  biological  reasons  most  abhorrent  to 
consciousness  and  therefore  highly  abnormal.  The  normal 
individual  is  in  rapport  with  real  surroundings  and  his  emo- 
tional reactions  are  more  or  less  stereotyped  in  response  to  the 


260  Concerning  Hamlet  and  Orestes 

environment.  This  constitutes  his  normality.  If,  however, 
thoughts  are  intruded  on  his  conscious  mind  that  are  foreign  to 
his  experience  they  must  be  unreal — hallucinations  or  delusions. 
In  proportion  to  the  extent  with  which  his  attention  is  engrossed 
by  these  new  ideas  is  his  interest  estranged  from  reality  and 
false  values  are  created.  In  this  way  two  symptoms  arise:  the 
inappropriate  affect  and  scattering  of  thought.  Words  lose 
their  common,  and  take  on  symbolic  meanings,  thus  producing 
incomprehensible  speech.  Similarly,  the  emotional  reaction 
is  appropriate  to  the  symbolic  and  not  to  the  normal  significance 
of  words  or  ideas. 

It  is  not  hard  to  believe  that  the  dramatist  may  feel  that 
the  hero  who  is  dominated  by  wishes  absolutely  foreign  to  nor- 
mal ambitions,  must  be  queer,  that  he  must  react  to  unreal 
voices  or  sights,  find  strange  meanings  in  ordinary  words  and 
behave  in  an  anomalous  way  to  common  stimuli.  This  is 
dementia  praecox.  As  an  example  of  how  others  than  the 
author  feel  this  correlation  to  be  present,  it  may  be  noted  that 
every  good  actress  portrays  Ophelia  with  dissociated  affect  when 
she  becomes  mad  and  talks  in  a  strain  previously  unknown  to 
her  personality.  It  is  this  that  makes  Ophelia's  insanity  so 
terribly  obvious. 

If  this  hypothesis  I  have  sketched  be  justified,  it  will  entail 
an  extension  in  meaning  of  what  we  term  "psychogenesis." 
We  can  no  longer  merely  assume  that  the  symptoms  of  a  given 
patient  have  a  psychological  history  and  that  many  patients 
tend  to  react  in  the  same  way  to  the  same  ideas.  We  must 
rather  think  of  these  ideas  lying  latent  in  all  of  us  and  there 
being  associated  with  these  ideas  a  tendency  to  behave  in  a 
manner  as  appropriate  to  these  thoughts  as  normal  behavior  is 
appropriate  to  normal  thoughts. 

But  is  there  anything  new  in  this?  Or  have  I,  perhaps, 
only  formulated  something  which  has  long  been  tacitly  recog- 
nized? The  latter,  I  fancy,  is  the  case.  We  know  that  when 
the  psychiatrist  cannot  give  his  reason,  but  still  makes  a  diag- 
nosis of  dementia  praecox,  it  is  because  of  the  "queerness"  of 
the  ideas  or  behavior  presented.  Even  the  layman  feels  the 
dementia  praecox  patient  to  have  a  different  outlook  from  that 
of  the  manic-depressive  case.  Pathological  exaggerations  of 
mood  are  so  akin  to  normal  emotions  and  show  such  gentle 
transitions  that  they  give  even  to  the  untrained  observer  an 
impression  of  being  temporary.  Queer  ideas  or  queer  behavior, 
however,  at  once  suggest  a  permanent  loss  of  mental  balance. 


ANAL-EROTIC  CHARACTER  TRAITS 

BY   ERNEST  JONES,   M.    D. 

(LONDON) 

PERHAPS  the  most  astonishing  of  Freud's  findings — 
and  certainly  the  one  that  has  evoked  the  liveliest  in- 
credulity,   repugnance,  -and   opposition — was   his   dis- 
covery that  certain  traits  of  character  may  become 
profoundly  modified  as  the  result  of  sexual  excitations  experi- 
enced by  the  infant  in  the  region  of  the  anal  canal.     I  imagine 
that  every  one  on  first  hearing  this  statement  finds  it  almost 
inconceivably  grotesque,  a  fact  which  well  illustrates  the  remote- 
ness of  the  unconscious  from   the    conscious    mind,  for  of  the 
truth  of  the  statement  itself  no  one  who  has  undertaken  any 
serious  psycho-analytical  study  can  have  any  doubt. 

There  are,  however,  two  biological  considerations,  relating 
respectively  to  the  ontogenetic  and  phylogenetic  antiquity  of  the 
physiological  process  concerned,  that  should  render  the  state- 
ment made  above  a  little  less  unthinkable,  if  not  actually 
plausible.  One  is  that  the  act  of  defaecation  constitutes  one 
of  the  two  greatest  personal  interests  of  the  infant  during  the 
first  year  of  life,  a  fact  which  should  carry  due  weight  to  any 
student  of  genetic  psychology,  for  the  basis  of  that  science  is 
the  principle  that  all  later  tendencies  and  interests  are  derived 
from  earlier  ones,  either  directly  or  indirectly;  with  this  may  be 
correlated  the  circumstance  that  the  alimentary  function  in 
general  is  the  most  constant  preoccupation  of  all  animals  other 
than  man.  The  other  is  that  many  of  the  sexual  processes  and 
organs  have  been  derived  from  the  excretory  ones,  in  both  the 
individual  and  the  race,  and  are  very  largely  modelled  on  them; 
in  the  lower  animals,  for  instance, — and,  indeed,  partly  so  even 
in  man — common  ducts  are  used  for  both.  That  the  primordial 
function  of  excretion,  and  the  fundamental  association  between 
it  and  sexuality,  should  result  in  far-reaching  effects  on  mental 
development  should  not,  therefore,  be  altogether  surprising. 
The  subject  should  logically  be  prefaced  by  a  discus- 
sion of  the  facts  of  anal  erotism  itself,  and  even  the  question 
of  infantile  sexuality  in  general,  but  so  many  discussions  and 
illustrations  of  this  are  now  to  be  found  in  the  literature  that  I 
can  deal  with  the  matter  here  very  briefly.  The  salient  features, 
as  elucidated  by  psycho-analysis,  are:  The  mucous  membrane 

261 


262  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

lining  the  anus  and  anal  canal  possesses  the  capacity  of  giving 
rise,  on  excitation,  to  sexual  sensations,  just  as  does  that  lining 
the  entrance  to  the  alimentary  tract.  The  sensations  vary  in 
intensity  with  the  strength  of  the  stimulus,  a  fact  frequently 
exploited  by  infants,  who  will  at  times  obstinately  postpone  the 
act  of  defaecation  so  as  to  heighten  the  pleasurable  sensation 
when  it  occurs,  thus  forming  a  habit  which  may  lead  to  chronic 
constipation  in  later  life.  The  pleasure  experienced  in  this  way 
is  one  which  as  a  rule  becomes  repressed  in  very  early  life,  so 
completely  that  perhaps  most  adults  are  no  longer  capable  of 
obtaining  any  pleasure  from  stimulation  in  this  region,  though 
there  are  a  great  many  with  whom  this  capacity  is  still  retained. 
The  psychical  energy  accompanying  the  wishes  and  sensations 
relating  to  the  region  is  almost  altogether  deflected  into  other 
directions,  leading  to  the  sublimations  and  reaction-formations 
which  are  the  subject-matter  of  this  paper.  I  do  not  propose 
here  to  touch  further  on  the  varieties  of  anal^erotic  activities  or 
on  their  importance  in  regard  to  education,  to  psychoneurotic 
symptomatology,  and  to  the  study  of  perversions,  each  of  which 
topics  would  occupy  a  considerable  chapter  in  itself. 

In  the  article  in  which  Freud1  originally  communicated  his 
^conclusions,  he  confined  himself  to  pointing  out  the  three  char- 
acter traits  that  are  most  typically  related  to  highly  developed 
anal  erotism — namely,  orderliness,  parsimony,  and  self-willedness 
or  obstinacy.  These  constitute  the  cardinal  triad  of  anal-erotic 
character  traits,  though  a  number  of  other  attributes  have  also 
been  described  by  Sadger  and  the  present  writer.  As  no  syste- 
matic account  of  them  has  hitherto  been  given,  an  attempt  will 
here  be  made  to  classify  them  and  to  point  out  their  inter-rela- 
tionship. As  might  have  been  anticipated,  some  of  them  are 
of  a  positive  nature — that  is,  they  are  sublimations  which 
represent  simply  a  deflection  from  the  original  aim;  while  others 
are  of  a  negative  nature — that  is,  they  constitute  reaction- 
formations  erected  as  barriers  against  the  repressed  tendencies. 

Bliiher2  would  distinguish  between  "defaecation  erotism," 
or  erotism  in  connection  with  the  act  of  defaecation,  and  "anal 
erotism,"  or  erotism  in  connection  with  any  other  activities— 
€.  g.  masturbation,  paederastia — relating  to  the  anal  region;  he 
holds  that  the  former  is  invariably  auto-erotic,  a  statement  not 
in  accord  with  the  facts  of  perversion.  I  would  suggest,  on  the 

'Freud,  "Charakter  und  Analerotik,"  Psychiatrisch-Neurologische  Wocfienschrift,  1903 ; 
Reprinted  in  his  "Sammlung  kleiner  Schriften  zur  Neurosenlehre, "  Zweite  Folge,  1909,  Cap.  IV. 

*Hans  Bliiher,  "Studien  iiber  den  perversen  Charakter,"  Zentralblatt  fiir  Psychoanalyse, 
Jahrg.  IV,  S.  13. 


Ernest  Jones  263 


other  hand,  that,  as  all  allo-erotic  manifestations  in  connection 
with  this  region  must  ultimately  be  derived  from  erotism  relating 
to  the  act  of  defaecation,  there  is  no  reason  for  introducing  a 
separate  term,  though  a  useful  distinction  may  be  drawn  be- 
tween the  different  aspects  of  the  originally  auto-erotic  anal 
erotism.  One  can  separate,  namely,  the  interest  (and  the 
character  traits  resulting  therefrom)  taken  in  the  act  itself  of 
defaecation  from  that  taken  in  the  product  of  this  act.  This 
separation  of  character  traits  cannot  be  made  quite  sharply,  it 
is  true,  for  with  some  of  them  both  of  the  interests  in  question 
play  a  part.  Of  Freud's  triad,  for  example,  the  self-willedness  is 
doubtless  related  to  the  first  of  the  two  interests  mentioned, 
and  the  orderliness  to  the  second,  but  the  parsimony  seems  to  be 
almost  equally  determined  by  both.  And  when  one  studies 
more  closely  still  the  relationships  of  the  traits,  the  same  com- 
plexity is  to  be  found;  the  orderliness,  for  instance,  passes  over 
into  pedantic  persistence  in  the  performance  of  duties,  which  is 
related  rather  to  the  first  class  of  interest.  Nevertheless,  a 
certain  gain  in  clearness  is  perhaps  achieved  by  keeping  distinct, 
so  far  as  is  possible,  these  two  aspects  of  anal  erotism. 

Taking  first  the  attitude  of  the  infant  towards  the  act  itself, 
and  the  later  influences  of  this  on  character  formation,  we  find 
that  there  are  two  typical  features  constantly  noted,  though,  of 
course,  to  a  very  varying  extent  in  different  cases.  The  one  is 
the  endeavour  of  the  infant  to  get  as  much  pleasure  as  possible 
out  of  the  performance,  the  other  is  his  effort  to  retain  his  in- 
dividual control  of  it  in  opposition  to  the  educative  aims  forced 
on  him  by  the  environment. 

The  first  of  these  endeavours  he  carries  through  by  post- 
poning the  act  as  long  as  he  can — children  have  been  known  even 
to  go  to  the  length  of  squatting  down  and  supporting  the  anal 
orifice  with  the  heel  so  as  to  keep  back  the  stool  to  the  last 
possible  moment — and  then  performing  it  with  intense  concen- 
tration, during  which  he  greatly  resents  any  disturbing  influence 
from  without.  Sadger1  has  pointed  out  how  this  attitude  may 
be  mirrored  in  later  character  tendencies.  Such  people  are  very 
given  to  procrastination;  they  delay  and  postpone  what  they 
may  have  to  do  until  the  eleventh  or  even  the  twelfth  hour. 
Then  they  plunge  into  the  work  with  a  desperate  and  often 
almost  a  ferocious  energy  which  nothing  is  allowed  to  thwart, 
any  interference  being  keenly  resented.  Undue  sensitiveness 
to  interference  is  very  characteristic  of  this  type,  especially  when 

'Sadger.     "Analerotik  und  Analcharakter, "  Die  Heilkunde,  1910. 


264  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

combined  with  marked  concentration  out  of  proportion  to  the 
importance  of  the  occupation.  A  kindred  trait  is  intense  per- 
sistence on  an  undertaking  once  engaged  on,  from  which  they 
allow  nothing  to  divert  them — even  though  considerations 
arising  later  may  put  the  desirability  or  the  value  of  the  under- 
taking in  a  totally  different  perspective.  Such  people  are  often 
notorious  bores.  They  are  equally  hard  to  move  to  a  given 
course  of  action  as  to  bring  them  from  it  once  they  have  started 
on  it.  They  are  typically  slow-minded  and  heavy  in  thought; 
once  they  have  got  on  to  a  topic  there  is  no  breaking  it  off  until 
they  have  gone  up  hill  and  down  dale  in  saying  all  they  want  to 
about  it,  and  in  the  meantime  no  one  else  is  allowed  to  interrupt 
or  get  a  word  in  on  the  matter;  if  they  try  to  do  so  they  are  simply 
ignored  or  else  their  interruption  greatly  resented.  On  the  other 
hand,  these  attributes  are  often  very  valuable,  for  the  thorough- 
ness and  dogged  persistence  with  which  tasks  are  carried 
through  has  its  rewards  in  the  quality  of  the  results.  Such 
people  often  show  an  extra-ordinary  capacity  for  forcing  their 
way  through  difficulties,  and,  through  their  persistence,  get 
things  done  in  despite  of  apparently  insuperable  obstacles.  The 
trait  of  persistence  is  often  related  to  pedantry  and  obstinacy, 
being  half-way  between  the  two.  A  typical  kind  of  behaviour 
when  such  a  person  is  faced  with  the  question  of  a  possible  under- 
taking— for  instance,  the  preparations  for  a  dinner-party,  the 
writing  of  an  article, — is  as  follows:  First  there  is  a  period  of 
silent  brooding,  during  which  the  plan  is  being  slowly,  and  often 
only  half -consciously,  elaborated.  At  this  time  not  only  are 
they  not  to  be  hurried,  which  would  only  result  in  a  flustered 
annoyance,  but  they  keep  postponing  the  preliminary  steps  as 
long  as  is  at  all  possible,  until  the  other  participants  despair  of 
the  performance  being  ever  acconplished,  at  least  in  time.  Then 
follows  a  spell  of  feverish  and  concentrated  activity,  when  all 
interference  is  resented  and  nothing  is  allowed  to  prevent  the 
programme  laid  down  being  carried  through  to  the  bitter  end  in 
all  its  details.  The  self-willed  independence  that  is  implicit 
throughout  this  description  comes  to  expression  in  another 
interesting  character  trait — namely,  the  conviction  that  no  one 
else  can  do  the  thing  in  question  as  well  as  the  subject  himself 
and  that  no  one  else  can  be  relied  upon  to  do  it  properly.  As 
a  result  such  a  person  cannot  depute  work,  for  he  has  no  faith 
in  its  being  done  adequately  unless  he  attends  personally  to  every 
detail.  Such  people  are  therefore  very  hard  to  get  on  with  as 
colleagues,  for,  although  on  occasion  they  will  get  through 


Ernest  Jones  265 


absolutely  enormous  masses  of  work  (Napoleon),  they  are  sub- 
ject to  inhibitions  during  which  nothing  goes  forward,  since  they 
refuse  to  allocate  any  of  the  work,  however  urgent  it  may  be,  to  a 
deputy  or  assistant.  There  are  many  historical  examples- 
Napoleon  is  again  one — of  persons  of  this  type  organising  an 
elaborate  system  which  functions  marvellously  well  while  its 
author,  with  tireless  energy,  attends  in  pe  son  to  every  detail, 
but  which  runs  the  risk  of  collapse  as  soon  as  the  master  hand  is 
inactive,  for,  having  assumed  it  all  himself  he  has  given  no  one 
else  the  chance  of  being  trained  in  responsibility.  One  notes  the 
relation  of  the  trait  last  discussed  to  narcissism  and  exalted 
belief  in  personal  perfection,  an  association  we  shall  have  to 
comment  on  again  in  considering  other  aspects  of  the  anal-erotic 
character. 

It  is  astounding  how  many  tasks  and  performances  can 
symbolise  in  the  unconscious  the  act  of  defaecation  and  thus 
have  the  mental  attitude  towards  them  influenced  by  the  anal- 
erotic  character  traits  when  these  are  present.  Three  classes  of 
actions  are  particularly  prone  to  become  affected  in  this  way. 
First,  tasks  where  there  is  a  special  sense  of  duty  or  of  "ought- 
ness"  attached,  therefore  especially  moral  tasks.  Much  of  the 
pathologically  intolerant  insistence  on  the  absolute  necessity 
of  doing  certain  things  in  exactly  the  right  way  is  derived  from 
this  source.  The  person  has  an  overwhelming  sense  of  "must- 
ness  "  which  brooks  of  no  argument  and  renders  him  quite  incap- 
able of  taking  any  sort  of  detached  or  objective  view  of  the 
matter;  there  is  only  one  side  to  the  question  and  it  is  not  open 
to  any  discussion  at  all.  Secondly,  tasks  that  are  intrinsically 
disagreeable  or  tedious,  towards  which,  therefore,  there  is  al- 
ready some  counter-will.  This  class  often  coalesces  with  the 
former  one,  when  the  moral  duty  is  of  an  unpleasant  or  distaste- 
ful nature.  A  typical  sub-group  is  the  kind  of  task  that  Ameri- 
cans aptly  term  "chores,"  boring  routine  duties  like  tidying 
drawers,  cleaning  out  a  cupboard,  filling  in  a  diary,  or  writing 
up  a  daily  report.  This  passes  over  into  the  third  class,  in  which 
the  task  concerns  objects  that  are  unconscious  symbols  for 
excretory  products.  Some  of  these  will  be  enumerated  later, 
but  a  few  may  be  mentioned  here:  any  form  of  dust  or  dirt,  any- 
thing to  do  with  paper,  any  kind  of  waste  product,  money. 
With  all  these  groups  we  may  note  the  alternation  of  inhibitory 
procrastination  and  feverish  concentration  described  above. 
For  example,  a  housewife  afflicted  with  a  marked  anal  complex 
will  keep  postponing  the  doing  of  a  necessary  duty  as  the 


266  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

cleaning  out  and  tidying  a  lumber  room  until  finally  she  is 
seized  with  a  passionate  energy  for  the  task,  to  which  everything 
else  is  subordinated  with  no  discrimination  as  to  relative  im- 
portance or  expediency;  similarly  with  the  getting  up  to  date 
with  one's  accounts  or  one's  notes,  with  the  arranging  of  dis- 
orderly material,  and  so  on.  The  most  perfect  example  of  all, 
and  one  quite  pathognomonic  of  a  marked  anal  complex,  con- 
cerns the  act  of  writing  letters.  There  are  few  people  who  do 
not  at  times  find  it  a  nuisance  to  bring  their  correspondence  up 
to  date,  but  the  type  under  discussion  may  show  the  completest 
possible  inhibition  at  the  thought  of  so  doing,  and  most  of  all 
when  they  have  the  strongest  desire  to  write  a  given  letter. 
When  they  finally  succeed  in  bringing  themselves  to  the  task, 
they  perform  it  with  a  wonderful  thoroughness,  giving  up  to  it 
their  whole  energy  and  interest,  so  that  they  astonish  the  long- 
neglected  relatives  by  producing  an  excellently  written  and 
detailed  budget;  they  despatch  epistles  rather  than  write  letters 
in  the  ordinary  sense. 

With  all  these  activities  the  desire  for  perfection  is  visible. 
Nothing  can  be  done  "by  halves.*'  When  an  anxious  relative 
begs  for  news,  if  only  a  line  on  a  postcard,  the  person  finds  it 
quite  as  impossible  to  grant  the  request  as  to  write  an  ordinary 
letter:  he  can  write  only  after  he  has  accumulated  enough 
energy  to  produce  a  really  satisfactory  work  of  art;  nothing  less 
will  suffice.  The  same  tendency  to  perfection  may  further  be 
displayed  in  the  calligraphy  of  the  letter,  which  is  also  related  to 
the  trait  of  neatness  that  will  be  considered  later ;  such  people  of- 
ten evince  remarkable  care  in  the  fineness  and  beauty  of  their 
handwriting.  The  lady  afflicted  with  what  the  Germans  call  a 
Hausfraupsy chose  will  often  find  it  difficult  to  attend  regularly  to 
the  routine  tasks  of  house  work,  and  may  neglect  and  postpone 
them  until  the  unconsciously  accumulated  energy  bursts  forth 
in  an  orgy  of  cleaning  activity.1  These  outbursts  of  activity  are  . 
commonly  followed  by  a  marked  sense  of  relief  and  self-satisfac- 
tion, to  which  succeeds  another  fallow  period  of  apparent 
inactivity. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  with  different  members  of  the 
type  there  is  a  considerable  variation  in  the  relative  prominence 
of  the  two  phases  of  the  process.  With  some,  namely,  the 
expressive  phase  of  thoroughness,  insistence,  persistence,  and 
general  energy  is  the  dominant  one,  whereas  with  others,  it  is 

1  Sadger,  loc.  cit.,  points  out  that  women  are  especially  apt  to  display  these  outbursts  perio* 
dically  at  times  of  suppressed  sexual  excitement,  e.  g.  in  relation  to  menstruation. 


Ernest  Jones  267 


the  inhibitory  phase  of  inactivity,  brooding,  delay,  and  post- 
ponement, which  may  even  extend  into  temporary  or  permanent 
paralysis  of  various  activities — such  as  complete  inability  ever 
to  write  any  letters. 

We  have  discussed  so  far  the  consequences  of  one  feature  of 
the  infant's  attitude  towards  the  act  of  defaecation — namely,  its 
endeavour  to  get  as  much  pleasure  as  possible  out  of  the  per- 
formance of  it;  we  have  now  to  consider  the  second,  correlated 
feature — the  endeavour  to  retain  his  individual  control  of  the 
process.  Like  the  previously  mentioned  feature,  this  also  has 
two  aspects — the  opposition  displayed  against  any  attempt 
from  without  to  dictate  conduct,  and  the  resentment  shown 
against  any  attempt  to  thwart  conduct  has  been  decided  on. 
These  reactions  constitute  the  character  trait  of  Freud's  triad 
which  he  calls  Eigensinn  (self-willedness,  obstinacy),  and  which 
may  attain  a  chronic  attitude  of  defiance.  The  person  objects 
equally  to  being  made  to  do  what  he  doesn't  want  to  and  to 
being  prevented  from  doing  what  he  does  want  to.  In  other 
words,  there  is  an  inordinate,  and  often  extreme,  sensitiveness 
as  to  interference.  Such  people  take  advice  badly,  resent  any 
pressure  being  put  on  them,  stand  on  their  rights  and  on  their 
dignity,  rebel  against  any  authority,  and  insist  on  going  their 
own  way;  they  are  never  to  be  driven  and  can  only  be 
led.  As  children  they  are  extremely  disobedient,  there 
being,  indeed,  a  constant  association  between  defiant  disobedi- 
ence and  unmastered  anal  erotism.  Later  a  reaction-form- 
ation against  this  may  develop,  leading  to  unusual  docility, 
but  it  can  generally  be  observed  that  the  docility  is  only  partial 
and  conditional — that  is  to  say,  they  are  docile  only  in  certain 
circumstances,  when  they  like  and  not  otherwise,  control  of  the 
situation  thus  being  ultimately  retained  by  the  individual. 

A  curious  sub-group  of  these  character  traits  depends  partly 
on  the  attitude  described  above  and  partly  on  the  appreciation 
of  value,  about  which  more  will  be  said  presently,  that  the  infant 
sets  on  his  excretory  product,  in  sharp  contrast  with  that  of  the 
adult.  Many  infants  feel  it  as  an  injustice  that  what  they  Have 
so  interestedly  produced  should  at  once  be  taken  away  from 
them,  and  this  goes  to  strengthen  the  resentment  against  the 
general  interference  on  the  subject,  resulting  in  an  intense 
feeling  against  any  form  of  injustice.  Such  people  in  later  life 
are  very  sensitive  on  the  matter  of  exact  justice  being  done, 
even  to  a  pedantic  extent,  and  on  all  kinds  of  fair  dealing.1 

1See  Ernest  Jones,  "Einige  Fdlle  von  Zwangsneurose, "   Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Ed.  IV., 
S.  586. 


268  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

They  get  particularly  agitated  at  the  idea  of  something  being 
taken  from  them  against  their  will,  and  especially  if  this  is  some- 
thing that  symbolises  faeces  in  the  unconscious,  as,  for  instance, 
money  does;  they  cannot  tolerate  being  cheated  of  the  smallest 
amount.  This  complex  often  also  serves  to  start  a  fear  of  cas- 
tration, i.  e.  of  some  valued  part  of  the  body  being  taken  away, 
though,  of  course,  this  has  other  sources  as  well.  The  concept 
of  time  is,  because  of  the  sense  of  value  attaching  to  it,  an  un- 
conscious equivalent  of  excretory  product,  and  the  reaction  just 
mentioned  is  also  shown  in  regard  to  it;  that  is  to  say,  people 
of  this  type  are  particularly  sensitive  to  their  time  being  taken 
up  against  their  will,  and  they  insist  in  every  way  on  being 
master  of  their  own  time. 

When,  now,  these  hated  intrusions  and  interferences  never- 
theless take  place,  the  subject's  reaction  to  them  is  one  of  re- 
sentment, increasing  on  occasion  to  anger  or  even  outbursts  of 
extreme  rage.  Brill1  and  Federn2  have  commented  on  the  rela- 
tion between  anal-erotic  sensations  and  the  earliest  impulses  of 
sadism,  and  I  have  elsewhere3  pointed  out  the  importance  played 
in  the  genesis  of  hatred  by  the  early  educative  interference  with 
anal-erotic  activities.  My  communication  referred  especially 
to  the  pathology  of  the  obsessional  neurosis;  in  a  subsequent 
paper  Freud4  confirmed  the  conclusions  there  reached,  and  also 
pointed  out  that  the  combination  of  sadism  and  anal-erotism, 
a  high  development  of  which  is  characteristic  of  the  obsessional 
neurosis,  constitutes  a  stage  in  the  development  of  the  normal 
child,  one  of  the  stages  to  which  he  gives  the  name  "pregenital. " 
Andreas-Salome5  also  has  dealt  at  length  with  the  importance 
for  later  sadism  of  the  conflict  between  the  infant  and  his  en- 
vironment over  the  matter  of  defaecatory  functioning.  Where 
this  has  been  very  pronounced  it  may  lead  to  a  permanent 
character  trait  of  irritability,  which  will  manifest  itself  either  as 
a  tendency  to  angry  outbursts  or  to  sullen  fractiousness  according 
to  the  degree  of  repression  and  other  factors  (cowardice,  etc). 
It  is  interesting  that  Berkeley -Hill6  should  in  this  connection  refer 

1BriU,  Psychanalysis,  Second  Edition,  1914,  Ch.  XIII,  "Anal  Eroticism  and  Character." 

8Federn,  "Beitrage  zur  Analyse  des  Sadismus  mid  Masochismus, "  Internal.  Zeilschr.f.  arz?l' 
Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg  I,  S.  42. 

'Chapter  XXXI  of  my  "Papers  on  Psycho-Analysis, "  Second  Edition,  1918. 

4Freud,  "Die  Disposition  zur  Zeangsneurose, "  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
Jahrg.  I,  S.  525. 

5Lou  Andreas-Salome,  ""Anal"  und  "Sexual,""  Imago,  Jahrg.  IV,  S.  249. 

"Owen  Berkeley-Hill,  "The  Psychology  of  the  Anus,"  Indian  Medical  Gazette,  August  1913, 
P.  301. 


Ernest  Jones  269 


to  a  Tamil  saying  which  runs  "A  man  who  has  a  short  temper 
suffers  from  piles. "  Infantile  anal  erotism  that  has  been  inade- 
quately dealt  with  may  be  suspected  in  any  one  who  is  the  victim 
of  chronic  irritability  and  bad  temper,  and  perhaps  the  reason 
why  this  trait  is  so  often  seen  in  elderly  persons  of  either  sex  is 
that  in  later  life,  when  sexual  vigour  is  waning,  there  is  a  ten- 
dency to  regress  towards  a  more  infantile  and  less  developed 
plane  of  sexuality;  it  is  known  that  old  people  often  show  other 
anal- character  traits  to  a  greater  extent  than  in  earlier  life,  e.  g. 
personal  carelessness,  parsimony,  and  so  on.1  The  reaction  of 
annoyance  and  bad  temper  is  especially  apt  to  be  brought  out  by 
intrusions  on  the  part  of  the  environment  of  just  the  sort  des- 
cribed above  — namely,  either  when  the  person  is  prevented 
from  doing  what  he  has  set  out  to,  or  when  he  is  made  to  do  what 
he  does  not  want  to.  Typical  situations  are:  hindering  the 
person  from  concentrating  on  a  task  which  he  has  gradually 
forced  himself  to  undertake,  and  from  which  he  is  now  not  to 
be  deterred;  compelling  him  to  part  with  money  or  time  against 
his  will;  pressing  and  urging  him  to  undertake  something  at  once 
when  he  wishes  to  brood  over  it,  and  so  on.  Finally,  in  con- 
nection with  the  tendency  to  anger  and  bad  temper  should  be 
mentioned  the  vindictive  desire  for  revenge  when  injured  or 
thwarted,  which  in  many  people  of  this  type  is  developed  to  an 
extraordinary  extent. 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  that  many  of  the  temperamental  traits 
mentioned  above  are  closely  related  to  narcissistic  self-love  and 
over-estimation  of  self-importance,  a  fact  which  indicates  the 
importance  of  the  contribution  made  by  anal  erotism  to  infantile 
narcissism.  I  am  referring  here  especially  to  self-willedness 
and  all  that  goes  with  this,  the  insistence  on  pursuing  one's  own 
path  regardless  of  the  influence  brought  to  bear  by  other  people, 
the  resentment  at  external  interference,  the  conviction  that  no 
one  else  can  carry  out  a  given  undertaking  as  well  as  oneself, 
etc.  Persons  of  the  type  under  consideration  are  apt  to  have  a 
strongly  marked  individuality,  and  study  of  them  throws  many 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  accepting  Trotter's  views  as  to  the  signi- 
ficance of  a  social  or  herd  instinct. 

A  character  trait  that  I  have  not  yet  been  able  fully  to 
analyse,  but  which  is  certainly  related  to  the  foregoing  ones,  has 
considerable  importance  for  general  happiness  and  efficiency. 
It  consists  of  an  inability  to  enjoy  any  pleasurable  situation 

1  On  the  other  hand,  Von  Hattingberg  points  out  that  some  of  the  character  traits,  e.  g.  obs- 
tinacj,  may  show  themselves  in  childhood  only  and  disappear  later;  "Analerotik,  Angstlust  und 
Eigensinn,"  Internal.  Zeitacher.f.  dntl.  Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg  II,  S.  244. 


270  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

unless  all  the  attendant  circumstances  are  quite  perfect.  People 
who  display  this  trait  are  extremely  sensitive  to  any  disturbing 
or  disharmonious  element  in  a  situation,  a  satisfactory  mood 
is  readily  impaired  by  slight  influences,  they  are — to  put  it 
colloquially  — easily  "put  out."  The  attitude  is  often  shown  in 
sexual  situations,  though  by  no  means  only  here;  the  striking  of 
a  slightly  discordant  note,  the  thought  of  an  unimportant  duty 
not  attended  to,  the  slightest  physical  discomfort,  these  and 
similar  circumstances  are  sufficient  to  abolish  potency  for  the 
time  being.  They  cannot  enjoy  an  operatic  performance,  a 
motor  ride,  a  social  function,  unless  they  are  exactly  "in  the 
mood,"  and  the  right  mood  is  only  too  fickle  and  erratic.  The 
trait  commonly  goes  with  chronic  irritability,  and  its  anal- 
erotic  origin  is  further  to  be  suspected  from  its  relation  to  the 
allied  characteristic  of  being  unable  to  settle  down  to  any  task 
until  everything  is  arranged  beforehand  to  the  last  detail;  such  a 
person  cannot  write  a  letter,  for  instance,  until  every  article  on 
the  desk  is  arranged  in  exactly  the  right  place,  until  the  pen  or 
pencil  is  precisely  in  order,  and  so  on — an  attitude  which  is 
certainly  of  anal-erotic  origin.  As  may  be  imagined,  such 
people  are,  as  a  rule,  not  only  difficult  to  live  with,  but  are  rarely 
happy;  they  worry,  they  fidget,  they  take  everything  too  serious- 
ly, and  their  life  is  a  never-ending  struggle  to  get  things  right, 
to  arrange  matters  so  that  they  may  at  last  get  some  enjoyment 
in  spite  of  all  the  difficulties  in  the  way.  In  this  connection  it  is 
noteworthy  that  paediatrists1  have  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  children  who  suffer  much  from  intestinal  disturbances  in 
infancy  usually  grow  up  to  be  unhappy,  irritable,  and  unduly 
serious,  i.  e.  into  the  type  just  indicated. 

Yet  another  character  trait  that  is  often  strengthened  by 
anal-erotic  complexes  is  the  desire  for  self-control,  especially 
when  this  becomes  a  veritable  passion.  There  are  people  who 
are  never  satisfied  with  their  capacity  for  self-control  and  who 
ceaselessly  experiment  with  themselves  with  the  aim  of  in- 
creasing it.  This  may  take  either  a  physical  or  moral  direction. 
To  the  former  category  belong  the  people  who  are  always  doing 
things  like  going  without  sugar  in  their  tea,  giving  up  smoking 
temporarily,  putting  their  legs  out  of  bed  on  a  cold  night,  and 
indulging  in  all  sorts  of  ascetic  performances  in  order  to  reassure 
themselves  of  their  power  of  self-control  and  to  "show  them- 
selves that  they  can  do  it. "  In  the  moral  sphere  the  effects 

1E.  g.  Czerny,  "Der  Arzt  als  Erzieher  des  Kindes,"  1908. 


Ernest  Jones  271 


are,  of  course,  more  disturbing  still,  and  need  not  be  enumerated 
here.  Although  there  are  naturally  many  other  sources  of  these 
ascetic  and  self-martyring  impulses,  one  not  unimportant  one, 
as  I  have  analytically  illustrated  elsewhere1,  is  the  lasting  in- 
fluence of  the  infant's  ambition  to  achieve  control  of  his  sphinc- 
ters, his  first  great  lesson  of  the  kind. 

Interest  in  the  act  of  defaecation  often  leads  to  interest  in 
the  site  of  defaecation,  ?'.  e.  to  the  anal  canal  itself.  Without 
going  into  the  possible  effects  of  this  on  the  sexual  development, 
which  are,  of  course,  of  considerable  importance,  I  may  just 
mention  a  few  characterological  consequences  that  I  have  noted 
in  the  course  of  psycho-analysis2.  The  most  interesting  one  is 
the'  tendency  to  be  occupied  with  the  reverse  side  of  various 
things  and  situations.  This  may  manifest  itself  in  many  differ- 
ent ways,  in  marked  curiosity  about  the  opposite  or  back  side  of 
objects  and  places, — e.  g.  in  the  desire  to  live  on  the  other  side 
of  a  hill  because  it  has  its  back  turned  to  a  given  place — ,  in  the 
proneness  to  make  numerous  mistakes  as  to  right  and  left,  east 
and  west,  to  reverse  words  and  letters  in  writing,  and  so  on. 
Another  curious  trait  of  the  same  origin  is  a  great  fascination 
for  all  underground  passages,  canals,  tunnels,  etc.,  and  I  have 
also  known  the  same  complex  lead  to  an  extreme  interest  in  the 
idea  of  centrality ;  one  of  my  patients  was  always  restlessly 
searching  to  discover  what  was  really  the  exact  centre  of  any 
town  he  might  be  in,  and  developed  many  philosophical  ideas  as 
to  what  constituted  the  very  "centre  of  life,"  the  "centre  of  the 
universe,"  etc. 


We  pass  now  to  the  second  of  the  two  categories  put  forward 
above — namely,  the  character  traits  derived  from  interest  in 
the  excretory  product  itself.  Some  of  these  traits  relate  purely 
to  this  aspect  of  the  subject,  but  most  of  those  to  be  next  con- 
sidered relate  partly  to  it  and  partly  to  the  former  theme  of 
interest  in  the  excretory  act.  They  all  represent  either  positive 
or  negative  reactions,  i.  e.  either  sublimations  or  reaction-forma- 
tions respectively.  To  understand  them  it  is  essential  to  realise 
the  primary  attitude  of  the  infant  towards  faecal  material. 
There  is  every  reason  to  think  that,  to  begin  with,  this  attitude 
is  throughout  positive,  in  contradistinction  to  the  adult  one. 
The  infant  regards  his  product  as  part  of  himself,  and  attaches 

I0p.  tit.,  Jahrbuch,  S.  587. 
*0p.  cit.,  Jahrbuch,  S.  581-583. 


272  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

to  it  a  strong  sense  of  value  and  of  possession.  He  soon  learns 
to  invest  the  idea  with  a  negative  feeling-attitude  of  disgust  as 
for  something  unclean.  This  comes  about  more  slowly  and  less 
completely  with  some  children  than  with  others,  depending  on 
the  degree  of  repression.  It  seems  likely  that  some  of  this  re- 
pression may  be  entirely  endogenous,  an  inherited  tendency. 
It  is  much  more  marked  in  the  case  of  other  people's  excreta  than 
with  their  own,  with  liquid  than  with  solid  excreta,  and  with 
the  sense  of  smell  than  with  that  of  touch  or  sight.  Before  this 
reaction-formation  develops,  the  infant's  natural  tendency— 
not  always  indulged  in — is  to  keep  and  play  with  the  material 
in  question,  the  two  typical  forms  of  wThich  are  moulding  and 
smearing1.  In  this  stage  the  infant  will  produce  and  smear  with 
excreta  as  a  token  of  affection  and  pleasure,  a  demonstration 
usually  misinterpreted  by  the  recipient  and  not  appreciated  at 
its  proper  value. 

§•  Before  we  go  on  to  discuss  the  character  traits  derived  from 
these  attitudes,  a  little  must  be  said  about  the  unconscious 
symbols  for  faeces,  on  to  which  the  corresponding  feelings  get 
transferred.  The  most  natural  one  is  food,  this  being  the  same 
substance  in  an  earlier  stage;  many  idiosyncrasies,  both  positive 
and  negative,  in  regard  to  various  articles  of  diet,  e.  g.  sausages, 
spinach,  rissoles,  etc,  are  due  to  this  unconscious  association. 
Another  obvious  symbol  is  any  dirty  material,  street-filth  (in- 
cluding, of  course,  dung)  soiled  linen  and  other  things,  dust,  coal, 
house  or  garden  refuse,  waste-paper,  and,  indeed,  waste  material 
of  all  description,  for  in  the  unconscious  the  ideas  denoted  by 
the  words  "waste"  and  "dirty"  seem  to  be  synonymous — the 
tertium  comparationis  doubtless  being  that  of  "refuse."  Either 
disgusting  or  waste  matter  related  to  the  body  is  especially  apt 
to  become  thus  associated.  The  former  one  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  material  of  loathsome  diseases,  e.  g.  purulent  and  other 
secretions,  and  this  is  also  the  reason  why  a  corpse  is  often  a 
symbol  of  faeces.  Examples  of  the  latter  one  are  hair  and  nails, 
parts  of  the  body  that  are  apt  to  get  dirty  and  which  are  periodi- 
cally cast  off.  Books  and  other  printed  matter  are  a  curious 
symbol  of  faeces,  presumably  through  the  association  with  paper 
and  the  idea  of  pressing  (smearing,  imprinting) . 

The  two  most  remarkable,  and  perhaps  most  important, 
faecal  symbols  are  money  and  children,  and,  as  they  occasion 
profound  surprise  to  every  one  who  first  hears  of  them,  a  little 
may  be  added  by  way  of  explanation.  Concerning  the  money 

1On  the  pleasure  in  smearing  see  Federn,  op.  tit.,  S.  41,  and  many  passages  in  Stekel's  writings. 


Ernest  Jones  273 


symbol  Freud  writes  :l  "  Ueberall,  wo  die  archaische  Denkweise 
herrschend  war  oder  geblieben  ist,  in  den  alten  Kulturen,  in 
Mythus,  Marchen,  Aberglauben,  im  unbewussten  Denken,  im 
Traume  und  in  der  Neurose  ist  das  Geld  in  innigste  Beziehungen 
zum  Drecke  gebracht.  Es  ist  bekannt,  dass  das  Geld,  welches 
der  Teufel  seinen  Buhlen  schenkt,  sich  nach  seinem  Weggehen 
in  Dreck  verwandelt,  und  der  Teufel  ist  doch  gewiss  nichts 
anderes  als  die  Personifikation  des  verdrangten  unbewussten 
Trieblebens.  Bekannt  ist  ferner  der  Aberglaube,  der  die  Auffin- 
dung  von  Schatzen  mit  der  Defakation  zusammenbringt,  und 
jedermann  vertraut  ist  die  Figur  des  *  Dukatenscheissers. ' 
Ja,  schon  in  der  altbabylonischen  Lehre  ist  Geld  der  Kot  der 
Holle. "  ("Wherever  the  archaic  mode  of  thought  has  prevailed 
or  still  prevails,  in  the  older  civilisations,  in  myths,  fairy-tales, 
superstition,  in  unconscious  thinking,  in  dreams,  and  in  neuroses, 
money  has  been  brought  into  the  closest  connection  with  filth. 
It  is  well  known  how  the  gold  that  the  devil  presented  his  ad- 
mirers changed  into  filth  on  his  departure,  and  surely  the  devil 
is  nothing  other  than  the  personification  of  the  repressed  un- 
conscious impulses.  The  superstition  is  also  well  known  that 
brings  the  discovery  of  treasure  into  association  with  defaeca- 
tion,  and  every  one  is  familiar  with  the  figure  of  the  'gold-bug' 
(literally  'excreter  of  ducats')2  Indeed,  even  in  the  ancient 
Babylonian  doctrine  gold  was  regarded  as  the  dung  of  hell"). 
Many  linguistic  expressions  point  to  the  same  association.  A 
popular  German  name  for  piles  is  "goldene  Ader,"  golden 
veins.  We  speak  of  a  "dirty  or  filthy  miser,"  of  a  man  "rolling" 
or  "wallowing"  in  money,  or  of  a  man  •" stinking  of  money." 
On  the  Stock  Exchange  a  man  who  is  hard  up  is  said  to  be  con- 

1Freud,  "Schriften,"  op.  tit.,  S.  136. 

*A  fairy-tale  equivalent  is  the  goose  with  the  golden  eggs.  For  other  mythological  ex- 
amples of  the  association  see  Dattner,  "Gold  und  Kot,"  Internal.  Zeitschrf.  arztl.  Psychoanalyse, 
Jahrg.  I,  S.  495. 

8  From  an  endless  number  of  literary  examples  of  the  association  I  will  quote  the  following 
two:  "I  hate  equality  on  a  money  basis.  It  is  the  equality  of  dirt."  (D.  H.  Lawrence,  "The 
Rainbow,"  1915,  P.  431). 

"More  solemn  than  the  tedious  pomp  that  waits 

On  princes,  when  their  rich  retinue  long 

Of  horses  led  and  grooms  besmear 'd  with  gold." 

(Milton,  "Paradise  Lost,"  Book  V.). 

The  association  is  common  enough  in  erotic  art,  especially  in  caricature  (because  of  the 
connection  between  contempt  and  anal  erotism).  Two  examples  may  be  cited  from  Broadley's 
"Napoleon  in  Caricature,"  1911:  One,  by  Foies,  depicts  Napoleon  and  George  III  as  "Thj  Rival 
Gardeners;"  at  the  side  is  a  wheelbarrow  filled  with  corns  and  labelled  "Manure  from  Italy  and 
Switzerland."  The  other,  entitled  "The  Blessings  of  Paper  Money,"  is  by  George  Cruikshank; 
there  is  a  figure  of  Napoleon  withdrawing  a  large  pan  filled  with  gold  coins  from  underneath  John 
Bull,  who  is  being  dosed  with  paper  money. 


274  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

stipated,  and  similar  expressions  such  as  "currency,"  "liquid 
money,"  etc.,  doubtless  come  from  the  same  source.  In  in- 
sanity, and,  as  Wulff1  has  pointed  out,  also  in  drunkenness,  the 
association  often  comes  openly  to  expression,  the  patient  re- 
ferring to  his  excreta  as  wealth,  money,  or  gold.  In  Browning's 
poem  "Gold  Hair:  A  Story  of  Pornic, "  the  ideas  of  hair,  decom- 
position, gold  colour,  money,  and  miserliness  are  brought  into 
the  closest  association.2  In  Freud's  original  article  on  the 
subject  he  proffered  the  opinion  that  the  association  is  in  part 
a  contrast  one — between  the  most  valuable  substance  man  pos- 
sesses and  the  least  valuable, — but  it  is  now  known  that  the 
connection  is  a  more  direct  one — namely,  that  the  sense  of 
value  attaching  to  money  is  a  direct  continuation  of  the  sense 
of  value  that  the  infant  attaches  to  its  excretory  product,  one 
which  in  the  adult  consciousness  is  replaced  by  its  opposite, 
though  it  still  persists  unaltered  in  the  unconscious.  In  a  very 
suggestive  paper,  Ferenczi3  has  worked  out  in  detail  the  stages 
by  which  the  child  passes  from  the  original  idea  of  excrement 
to  the  apparently  remote  one  of  money.  Shortly  put,  they 
are  as  follows:  transference  of  interest  from  the  original 
substance  to  a  similar  one  which,  however,  is  odourless, 
i.  e.  mud-pies;  from  this  to  one  that  is  dehydrated,  i.  e.  sand; 
from  this  to  one  of  a  harder  consistence,  i.  e.  pebbles  (some 
savages  still  barter  in  pebbles,  and  there  is  still  in  German  an 
expression  " steinreich, "  i.  e.  stone-rich,  to  denote  wealth);  then 
come  the  artificial  objects  like  marbles,  buttons,4  jewels,  etc., 
and  finally  the  attractive  coins  themselves  (helped,  of  course,  by 
the  value  attached  to  .them  by  adults).  In  conclusion,  I  may 
mention  a  curious  copro-symbol  in  this  connection — namely, 
one's  last  will  and  testament;  the  association  is  doubtless  the 
sense  of  value  and  the  prominence  of  the  idea  of  something  being 
left  finally  behind. 

The  association  between  children  and  faeces  comes  about 
in  the  following  way :  In  the  young  child's  spontaneous  phantasy 
the  abdomen  is  merely  a  bag  of  undifferentiated  contents  into 
which  food  goes  and  out  of  which  faeces  come.  The  knowledge 
that  the  foetus  grows  in  the  mother's  abdomen — a  fact  easily 

1Wulff,  "Zur  Neurosensymbolik:  Kot-Geld,"  Zentralbl.  f.  Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg.  I,  S.  337. 

2  In  the  Norse  tale  of  Bushy  Bride  the  heroine's  hair  drops  gold  as  she  brushes  it.  For  associa- 
tions in  mythology  between  hair  and  gold  see  also  Laistner,  "Das  Ratsel  der  Sphinx,  1889,  Bd. 
II,  S.  147,  etc. 

8Ferenczi,  "Contributions  to  Psycho- Analysis, "  English  Translation,  1916,  Chapter  XIII, 
"The  Ontogenesis  of  the  Interest  in  Money." 

4Some  neurotics  have  an  intense  feeling  that  all  buttons  are  filthy  objects,  one  doubtless 
furthered  by  the  association  between  them  and  soiled  clothes. 


Ernest  Jones  275 


observed  by  children  without  its  being  realised  by  grown-ups, 
and  later  forgotten — leads  to  the  natural  inference  that  it  grows 
out  of  food,  which  is  perfectly  correct  except  for  the  initial  pair 
of  cells,  and  then,  since  the  child  has  no  knowledge  of  the  vagina, 
he  can  only  conclude  that  the  baby  leaves  the  body  through  the 
only  opening  through  which  he  has  ever  known  solid  material 
leave  it — namely,  the  anus1.  This  "cloaca!"  theory  of  birth 
again  has  its  germ  of  truth,  for  the  vagina  and  the  anus  were 
originally  one  passage,  in  pre-mammalian  animals.  The  baby 
is  thus  something  that  in  some  special  way  has  been  created  and 
formed  out  of  faeces2;  faeces  and  children  are,  after  all,  the  only 
two  things  that  the  body  can  create  and  produce,  and  the  im- 
pulse to  do  so  is  remarkably  similar  in  the  two  cases,  especially 
to  a  young  child  whose  feelings  about  its  excreta  are  not  yet  what 
our's  are.  The  child  finds  in  nature  plenty  of  confirmatory 
evidence  for  its  view  that  charming  things  grow  out  of  matter 
with  a  bad  odour,  e.  g.  flowers3  out  of  manured  soil,  etc,  this  being 
one  of  the  sources  of  passionate  delight  in  flowers  (characteris- 
tically enough,  most  on  the  part  of  girls),  which  are  unconscious 
symbols  for  babies.  I  have  elsewhere4  collected  a  number  of 
words  the  etymology  of  which  illustrates  the  association  between 
babies,  faeces,  and  odour.  An  otherwise  unintelligible  symbolism 
I  have  noted5  becomes  explicable  in  the  light  of  the  preceding 
considerations — namely,  that  the  idea  of  stealing  money  from 
a  woman  can  symbolize  the  idea  of  begetting  a  child  by  her.  The 
association  between  the  ideas  of  corpse  and  faeces — both  being 
something  that  was  alive  and  is  dead — may  also  contribute  to 
the  belief  that  babies  come  from  some  one  who  has  died.6 

The  possible  reactions  to  these  various  symbols  are  so 
numerous  and  complex  that  they  are  not  easy  to  classify.  The 
anal-erotic  complex  is  genetically  related  to  two  of  the  most 
fundamental  and  far-reaching  instincts,  the  instincts  to  possess 
and  to  create  or  produce  respectively.  On  the  whole  they  are 

1  This  view  is  usually  forgotten  and  then  replaced  by  the  more  acceptable  one  that  the  baby 
emerges  through  the  navel. 

2  Clinical  examples  of  this  are  given  by  Freud,  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  I,  S.  55,  and 
Jung,  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  II,  S.  49.     Many  examples  of  the  same  belief  in  mythology 
and  folk-lore  are  quoted  by  Rank,  "  Volkerpsychologisehe  Parallelen  zu  den  infantilen  Sexual- 
theorien,"  Zentralbl.  f.  Psychoanalyse,  Jahrg  II,  S.  379,  380,  381.     The  idea  has  often  been  de- 
picted in  art,  of  which  an  example  is  to  be  found  in  Fuchs,  "Das  erotische  Element  in  der  Kari- 
katur,"  1904,  S.  85. 

3 On  the  association  between  flowers,  hair,  and  odour  see  Scheuer,  "Das  menschliche  Haar 
and  seine  Beziehungen  zur  Sexualsphare,"  Sevual-Probleme,  Jahrg,  VIII.  especially  S.  173,  and 
also  in  this  connection  a  note  of  my  own,  "  Haarschneiden  und  Geiz,"  Internal.  Zeitschr.  f.  arztt. 
Psychoanalyse  Jahrg.  II,  S.  383,  and  Chapter  XXX  of  my  "Papers." 

4  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  VI,  S.  19*. 

5. Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  IV,  S.  585. 

•See  Chapter  XXXIX  of  my  "Papers." 


276  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

opposed  to  each  other,  the  one  being  an  impulse  to  keep,  the 
other  an  impulse  to  give  out1,  and  they  may  be  roughly  correlated 
with  the  two  phases  described  earlier  in  this  paper — the  tendency 
to  keep  back  and  postpone  production  and  to  produce  feverishly. 
The  character  of  the  person  will  greatly  depend  on  whether  the 
stress  is  laid  on  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  impulses.  The 
question  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  "keeping  back3' 
attitude  of  the  first  phase  may  extend  over  on  to  the  product 
itself  after  it  has  been  brought  forth,  so  that  a  hoarding  tendency 
ensues.  Further,  enormous  complexities  result  from  the  fact 
that  the  different  attitudes  possible  vary  with  different  symbols, 
so  that  the  same  person  may  in  one  respect  show  a  positive  atti- 
tude, in  another  a  negative  one,  in  one  respect  a  sublimation, 
in  another  a  reaction-formation,  in  one  respect  a  giving  out,  in 
another  a  holding  back,  and  so  on.  It  is  therefore  only  possible 
to  delineate  certain  general  types  in  a  rather  schematic  way,  and 
to  call  attention  to  the  more  characteristic  reactions.  At  the 
risk  of  making  some  errors  of  over-simplification,  I  shall  try  to 
group  the  possible  reactions  into  four,  on  the  basis  of  two  prin- 
ciples: that  of  the  two  impulses  just  mentioned,  and  that  of 
sublimation  versus  reaction-formation,  this  one  depending  on 
wiiether  the  original  sense  of  value  is  retained  or  not.  Thus  we 
have  two  groups  derived  from  the  "keeping  back"  or  possessing 
instinct,  according  as  the  sense  of  value  is  or  is  not  retained,  and 
similarly  two  with  the  creative  or  productive  instinct.  These 
four  groups  will  next  be  illustrated  in  the  order  given. 

A.  I.  The  most  typical  sublimation  product  of  the  "keep- 
ing back"  tendency  is  the  character  trait  of  parsimony,  one  of 
Freud's  triad;  in  the  most  pronounced  cases  it  goes  on  to  actual 
miserliness.  There  are  twro  aspects  to  the  trait,  the  refusal  to 
give  and  the  desire  to  gather,  and  with  a  given  person  one  of 
these  may  be  much  more  prominent  than  the  other;  he  may  be 
either  niggardly  or  avaricious,  or  both.  Such  people  are  mean, 
and  grudge  giving  or  lending.2  The  attitude  naturally  applies 
most  to  the  various  copro-symbols,  e.  g.  money  (most  of  all), 
books,  time,  food  (food-hoarders!),  and  so  on.  The  irrational, 
i.  e.  unconscious,  origin  of  the  attitude  is  often  shown  by  the  way 
in  which  the  person  will  grudge  giving  a  copper/ or  a  penny 
stamp  (which  are  more  directly  associated  symbols)  much  more 
than  a  considerable  sum  given  by  cheque.  Sometimes  the  trait 

1 .     It  is  interesting  that  Bertrand  Russell,  in  his" Principles  of  Social  Reconstruction,  "1916 
should  make  this  opposition  the  basis  of  an  extensive  sociological  philosophy. 
2 We  appiopriately  speak  of  such  people  as  being  "close,"  "tight,"  etc. 


Ernest  Jones  277 


is  marked  only  in  a  limited  sphere;  a  common  one  is  where  a 
quite  well-to-do  person  grudges  the  cost  of  the  laundry,  and 
resorts  to  various  petty  devices  to  diminish  it ;  the  tendency  not  to 
change  underclothing  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary  is  often 
doubly  motivated,  consciously  by  the  dislike  of  parting  with 
money  (i.  e.  sublimated  dirt) ,  and  unconsciously  by  the  dislike  of 
parting  with  bodily  dirt.  When  such  people  are  compelled  to  part 
writh  more  than  they  are  willing  to,  they  display  the  reaction  of 
annoyance  and  resentment  discussed  earlier  in  this  paper;  thus 
when  money  is  stolen  from  them,  and  particularly  when  it  is 
stolen  by  their  being  given  "bad"  (i.  e.  "rotten")  money1 — • 
that  is,  when  they  are  made  to  excrete  against  their  will. 

The  second  aspect  mentioned  is  the  impulse  to  gather, 
collect,  and  hoard.  All  collectors  are  anal-erotics,  and  the 
objects  collected  are  nearly  always  typical  copro-symbols :  thus, 
money,  coins  (apart  from  current  ones),  stamps,  eggs,  butter- 
flies— these  two  being  associated  with  the  idea  of  babies — , 
books,  and  even  worthless  things  like  pins,  old  newspapers,  etc. 
In  the  same  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  joy  in  finding  or 
picking  up  objects  of  the  same  sort,  pins,  coins,  etc,  and  the 
interest  in  the  discovery  of  treasure  trove.  The  treasure  trove 
is  usually  buried  underground,  which  connects  with  the  interest 
mentioned  above  in  concealed  passages,  caves,  and  the  like;  the 
interest  is  also  evidently  strengthened  by  other  sexual  com- 
ponents, Schaulust  (visual  sexual  curiosity)  incestuous  exploration 
in  the  body  of  Mother  Earth1  etc. 

A  more  edifying  manifestation  of  the  same  complex  is  the 
great  affection  that  may  be  displayed  for  various  symbolic 
objects.  Not  to  speak  of  the  fond  care  that  may  be  lavished  on  a 
given  collection — a  trait  of  obvious  value  in  the  custodians  of 
museums  and  libraries,  etc. — ,  one  of  the  most  impressive  traits 
in  the  whole  gamut  of  the  anal  character  is  the  extraordinary 
and  quite  exquisite  tenderness  that  some  members  of  the  type 
are  capable  of,  especially  with  children3;  this  is  no  doubt 
strengthened  both  by  the  association  with  innocence  and  purity 

1  Jahrbuch,  loc.  cit. 

zln  Paradise  Lost"  (Book  8)  we  read  how  men,  taught  by  Mammon, 

"with  impious  hands 
Rifl'd  the  bowels  of  their  mother  Earth 
For  Treasures  better  hid.     Soon  had  his  crew 
Op'nd  into  the  Hill  a  spacious  wound 
And  dig'd  out  ribs  of  Gold. " 

8  It  is  quite  characteristic  even  of  misers  to  be  passionate!}  fond  of  their  children,e.g.  Shylock, 
Balzac's  Eugenie  Grandet,  etc.,  with  the  former  of  these,  Shakespeare  clearly  illustrates  the 
equivalency  and  unconscious  identity  of  the  daughter  and  the  ducats. 


278  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

presently  to  be  discussed,  and  by  the  reaction-formation  against 
the  repressed  sadism  that  so  commonly  goes  with  marked 
anal  erotism.  A  curious  accompaniment  of  this  tender- 
ness is  a  very  pronounced  tendency  to  domineer  the  loved  (and 
possessed)  object;  such  people  are  often  very  dictatorial  or  even 
tyrannical,  and  are  extremely  intolerant  of  any  display  of  in- 
dependence on  the  part  of  the  loved  object. 

A.  2.  The  chief  reaction-formation  shown  in  conjunction 
with  the  "retaining"  tendency  is  the  character  trait  of  order- 
liness, the  third  of  Freud's  triad.  It  is  evidently  an  extension  of 
cleanliness,  on  the  obverse  principle  to  the  saying  that  "dirt  is 
matter  in  the  wrong  place;"  presumably  it  is  no  longer  dirt  if  it 
is  put  in  the  right  place.  When  marked,  this  trait  may  amount 
to  a  definite  neurotic  symptom,  there  being  a  restless  and  un- 
controllable passion  for  constantly  arranging  the  various  details 
of  a  room  until  everything  is  tidy,  symmetrical,  and  in  exactly 
"its  right  place."  One  illustration  of  this  familiar  trait  will 
suffice:  I  have  seen  books,  never  used,  kept  on  a  table,  and, 
although  they  were  all  of  the  same  size  and  looked  perfectly  neat, 
the  owner  could  not  rest  without  putting  them  in  the  precise 
order  he  had  ordained  as  fit  and  proper;  a  picture  ever  so  slightly 
askew  would  have  made  it  out  of  the  question  for  him  to  continue 
a  conversation.  Such  people  are  extremely  intolerant  of  any 
disorder;  they  are  bound  to  clear  away  any  waste  paper  or  other 
objects  "left  lying  about."  Everything  must  be  put  in  its 
proper  place,  and  if  possible  put  away  out  of  sight.  A  more 
useful  development  that  occurs  in  some  members  of  the  type 
is  a  high  capacity  for  organising  and  systematising. 

In  the  field  of  thought  this  tendency  commonly  leads  to 
undue  pedantry,  with  a  fondness  for  definitions  and  exactitude, 
often  merely  verbal.  An  interesting  and  valuable  variety  occa- 
sionally met  with  is  a  great  dislike  for  muddled  thinking,  and  a 
passion  for  lucidity  of  thought;  such  a  person  delights  in  a 
getting  a  matter  quite  clear,  has  fondness  for  classifying,  and 
so  on. 

The  intolerance  for  disorder  is  closely  related  to  another 
trait,  the  intolerance  for  waste.  This  has  more  than  one  source. 
It  represents  a  dislike  of  anything  being  thrown  away  (really 
from  the  person) — a  manifestation  of  the  retaining  tendency 
under  consideration — and  also  a  dislike  of  the  waste  product 
because  it  represents  refuse,  i.  e.  dirt,  so  that  every  effort  is 
made  to  make  use  of  it.  Such  people  are  always  pleased  at  dis- 
covering or  hearing  of  some  new  process  for  converting  waste 


Ernest  Jones  279 


products  into  useful  material,  in  sewage-farms,  coal  tar  manu- 
facturies,  and  the  like. 

A  correlated  trait,  to  which  Freud  called  attention,  is  re- 
liability, the  capacity  for  being  depended  on.  It  is  related  to 
the  passion  for  thoroughness  and  efficiency,  with  the  dislike  of 
deputing,  that  was  discussed  earlier  in  the  paper.  People  having 
it  can  be  trusted  not  to  neglect  any  duty  or  to  leave  things  un- 
done or  half  done. 

B.  I.  In  this  category  comes  the  opposite  of  parsimony— 
namely,  extreme  generosity  and  extravagance.  Some  psycho- 
analysts would  call  this  type  anal-erotics  as  distinct  from  the 
anal  character  of  the  former,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  they  are 
equally  character  types  derived  from  anal -erotic  complexes, 
differing  only  in  that  one  is  positive  and  the  other  negative. 
One  can  distinguish  two  varieties  of  even  the  positive  aspect  of 
the  "giving  out"  type  according  to  what  is  done  with  the  pro- 
duct; with  the  one  variety  the  person's  aim  is  to  eject  the  product 
on  to  some  other  object,  living  or  not,  while  with  the  other  the 
aim  is  to  manipulate  the  product  further  and  to  create  some- 
thing else  out  of  it.  The  two  will  next  be  considered  in  this  order. 

a.  The  simplest  type  of  the  former  aim  may  be  called  a 
sublimation  of  the  primitive  smearing  impulse.  An  unrefined, 
and  usually  repressed  form  of  this  is  the  impulse  to  stain  or  con- 
taminate, found,  for  instance,  in  the  perversion  known  as  pygma- 
lionism,  the  impulse  to  stain  statues  with  ink,  etc,  and  in  the 
perverse  impulse  to  defile  women  or  their  clothing  by  throwing 
ink,  acid,  or  chemicals  over  them1 ;  it  sometimes  lurks  behind  the 
erotic  passion  for  young  children  (desire  to  contaminate  their 
innocence).  Two  sublimations  of  this  impulse  are  of  great  social 
significance — namely,  interest  in  painting  and  in  printing2,  i.  e. 
in  implanting  one's  mark  on  some  substance.  Lowlier  forms  of 
the  same  tendency  are  the  common  fondness  of  the  uneducated 
for  carving  or  writing  their  names,  i.  e.  leaving  a  memento  of 
of  themselves  which  may  injure  and  spoil  something  beautiful 
(and  therefore  spoilable) ;  on  the  same  plane  there  are  innumer- 
able manifestations  of  this  spoiling,  defiling  impulse,  usually 
associated  with  destructiveness  (Freud's  pregenital  sadistic- 
anal-erotic  stage  of  development) — witness  the  War. 

When,  with  retention  of  the  sense  of  value,  the  original 
product  is  replaced  by  money,  jewels,  etc.,  and  when,  further, 

1  Theinet,  "Attentats  aux  Moeurs,"  1898,  pp.  484  el  seq.  Moll,  "Gutachten  liber  einem 
Sexual-Perversen  (Besudelungstrieb),"  ZeUschr,  f.  MedizinaJbeamte,  1900,  Heft  XIII. 

'.  There  are  obviously  other  sources,  even  in  the  unconscious,  for  these  interests,  but  the 
importance  of  the  one  here  given  is  not  to  be  underestimated. 


280  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

the  original  sexual  impulse  has  developed  on  to  the  allo-erotic 
plane,  there  is  brought  about  a  form  of  love-life  characterised 
by  the  overwhelming  predominance  of  the  act  of  giving.  It  is 
true  that,  from  both  the  psychological  and  physiological  basis 
of  love,  the  greater  part  of  all  love-life  is  modelled  on  the  proto- 
type of  giving  and  receiving,  but  in  the  type  in  question  all  other 
aspects  of  love  are  entirely  subordinated  to  this  one  act.  Such 
people  are  always  making  presents ;  they  woo  their  mate  by  only 
one  method  of  making  themselves  agreeable  and  attractive,  by 
giving  her  jewels,  chocolates,  etc,  etc.  The  immature  and  pre- 
genital  level  of  this  form  of  love-life  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it 
is  commonest  with  persons  who  are  relatively  impotent  or  anaes- 
thetic; the  usual  pair  who  love  in  this  way  is  an  old  man  and  a 
young  girl,  the  former  having  reverted  to  this  infantile  level  and 
the  latter  never  having  left  it. 

It  is  probable  that  the  very  desire  to  impregnate  is  contri- 
buted to  by  the  complex  in  question  (see  above  for  child  sym- 
bolism), but  we  are  here  on  a  more  adult,  genital  plane  of  de- 
velopment so  that  it  is  only  possible  to  detect  traces  of  the  com- 
plex in  some  people. 

6.  The  desire  to  manipulate  the  product  further  and  to 
create  out  of  it  leads  to  various  sublimations,  beginning  with 
the  usual  fondness  of  children  for  moulding  and  manipulating 
plastic  material,  putty,  plastecene,  etc.  The  commonest  sub- 
limation is  in  the  direction  of  cooking1,  which  may  later  be 
replaced  by  an  aversion  from  cooking  or  continued  as  a  passion 
for  it.  It  finds  extensive  application  in  two  other  spheres  of  life, 
the  industrial2  and  the  artistic;  good  examples  of  the  former  are 
metal-moulding,  building,  carpentry,  engraving,  etc;  examples 
of  the  latter  are  sculpture,  architecture,  wood-carving,  photog- 
raphy, etc.3 

B.  2.  We  have  next  to  consider  results  of  the  reaction- 
formations  built  up  against  material  that  has  been  emitted,  or 
symbols  of  this.  The  most  obvious  one  is  a  strong  dislike  of 
dirt  and  a  passion  for  cleanliness.4  Sadger  points  out  that 
intense  dislike  of  dirt  on  the  body  itself  is  usually  indicative  of  a 
masturbation  complex,  the  anal-erotic  one  manifesting  itself 

'See  Jahrbuch,  op.  cit.  S.  568. 

a  It  does  not  seem  altogether  fanciful  to  correlate  the  enormous  extension  of  interest  in  in- 
dustrialism that  took  place  a  century  or  so  ago  with  the  wave  of  increased  repression  of  anal 
erotism  that  can  be  shown  historically  to  have  accompanied  it,  especially  in  England. 

3]>st  it  may  be  thought  that  any  of  these  conclusions  aie  speculative  I  may  say  that  every 
one  is  based  on  the  data  of  actual  analyses,  as  are  all  the  conclusions  presented  in  this  paper. 

4  Sadger,  op.  rit. 


'Ernest  Jones  281 


rather  in  an  aversion  from  dirt  in  regard  to  external  objects, 
particularly  clothing  and  furniture — where  with  neurotics  it 
may  become  exceedingly  exaggerated ;  he  gives  as  a  special  mark 
of  an  anal-erotic  complex  the  dislike  of  street  dirt  and  the 
tendency  to  lift  the  skirts  specially  high  from  the  ground  (ex- 
cepting, of  course,  the  cases  of  girls  where  this  is  due  rather  to  an 
exhibitionistic  impulse).  My  experience  agrees  with  his  in  this 
conclusion,  with,  however,  one  modification.  I  find  that  the 
anal-erotic  reaction  often  extends  to  the  inside  of  the  body,  there 
being  a  conviction  that  everything  inside  is  inherently  filthy;1 
I  have  known  such  people  be  unwilling  even  to  insert  a  finger 
into  their  own  mouths,  and  to  have  the  custom  of  drinking  large 
quantities  of  water  daily  with  the  idea  of  cleansing  the  dirty 
inside  of  the  body. 

In  striking  contrast  with  the  character  trait  of  loving  care 
in  regard  to  objects,  which  was  mentioned  above  (under  A.  I.), 
is  the  attitude  of  the  present  type.  Such  people,  so  far  from 
being  proud  of  their  possessions  and  productions,  take  very 
little  interest  in  them.  They  are  often  quite  indifferent  to  their 
immediate  surroundings,  to  their  furniture,  clothes,  and  so  on. 
As  to  their  own  productions,  whether  material  or  mental,  their 
chief  concern  after  the  process  is  finished  is  to  get  rid  of  them  as 
completely  as  possible,  and  they  discard  them  with  no  wish  to 
know  what  becomes  of  them.  This  attitude  may,  through  the 
association  explained  above,  even  extend  to  the  children  pro- 
duced, though  such  cases  are  rare ;  when  this  happens,  the  woman 
may  delight  in  the  process  of  pregnancy  itself,  but  take  no  in- 
terest in  the  results  of  it. 

An  extension  of  this  reaction  is  the  exaggerated  disgust 
and  aversion  sometimes  displayed  in  regard  to  any  idea 
of  contaminating  or  spoiling.  Such  people  are  abjectly  miserable 
at  the  thought  of  anything,  especially  beautiful  objects,  being 
injured,  spoiled,  ruined,  and  their  life  in  an  industrial  age  is  one 
long  protest  against  the  intrusion  of  man,  with  all  his  squalor 
and  ugliness,  into  the  previously  untouched  spots  of  nature. 
The  staining  of  table-linen,  the  defacement  of  a  book,  the  in- 
juring of  a  picture,  the  growth  of  a  town  over  what  were  fields 
and  woods,  the  post-prandial  performances  of  trippers  in  the 
country,  the  building  of  a  new  factory  or  the  extension  of  a  rail- 
way— all  evoke  the  same  reaction  of  agonized  distress  and  re- 
sentment. 

1  Accompanying  this  is  often  to  he  found  a  marked  hypochondria,  especially  in  regard  to 
alimentary  functioning  of  all  kind.-,. 


282  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

A  variety  of  the  reaction  that  is  very  important  sociologically 
is  what  may  be  called  the  morbid  purity  complex.  I  refer  to 
the  purity  fanatics  who  can  only  conceive  of  sexuality  as  a  kind 
of  anal  erotism,  and  to  whom,  therefore,  all  its  manifestations 
are  necessarily  filthy1.  They  have  so  perverted  the  very  mean- 
ing of  the  word  "pure"  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  use  it  now- 
adays without  exposing  oneself  to  the  so  often  well-founded 
comment  "To  the  pure  all  things  are  impure."  My  experience 
also  tallies  with  Sadger's2  in  tracing  to  the  same  origin  what  he 
calls  "the  theory  of  the  pure  man"  that  so  many  neurotic  girls 
hold  — namely,  the  belief  that  a  man  is  defiled  unless  he  enters 
marriage  with  no  previous  experience  of  allo-erotic  functioning. 
To  such  people  sexuality  is  so  inherently  filthy  in  itself  that  it 
can  only  be  removed  from  this  reproach — if  at  all — by  surround- 
ing it  with  the  most  elaborate  precautions  and  special  conditions. 

A  little  should  be  said,  in  conclusion,  of  a  theme  that  has 
so  far  not  been  touched  on  here — namely,  the  psychological 
derivatives  of  the  flatus  complex,  of  the  infant's  interest  in  the 
production  of  intestinal  gas.  I  have  devoted  a  monograph3  to 
some  aspects  of  the  part  played  in  art  and  religion  by  this  com- 
plex, the  manifestations  of  which  are  a  good  deal  more  extensive 
than  might  be  supposed.  I  have  shown4  that  in  the  unconscious 
the  idea  of  flatus  forms  important  associations  with  a  series  of 
other  ideas  having  similar  attributes,  notably  those  of  sound, 
light,  odour,  fire,  breath,  speech,  thunder,  thought,  mind,  soul, 
music5,  poetry5,  and  that  a  number  of  mental  attitudes  towards 
these  ideas  is  influenced  by  the  association  in  question.  I  do  not 
propose  to  repeat  these  here,  but  will  simply  illustrate  them  by  a 
few  examples.  A  passion  for  propagandism  of  ideas,  and  a  belief 
in  telepathy6,  may  be  largely  determined  by  this  complex.  So 
may  an  intense  aversion  for  already  breathed  air,  with  a  fanati- 
cism for  fresh  air,  a  passionate  interest  in  the  subject  of  breath 
control,  and  the  conviction  that  breathing  exercises  afford  a 
panacea  for  mental  and  bodily  ills.  With  speech,  quite  apart 
from  gross  inhibitions  like  stuttering,  the  influence  of  the  asso- 
ciated flatus  complex  may  extend  into  the  finest  details  of  syntax 
and  grammar;  a  man,  for  instance,  who  was  habitually  reticent 

1See  Jahrbuch,  op.  cit.,  S.  580. 
2Sadger,  op.  cit. 

3"Die  Empfangnis  der  Jungfrau  Maria  durch  das  Ohr: Ein  Beitrag zu  der  Beziehung  Zwischen 
Kunst  und  Religion, "  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  VI. 

4  Jahrbuch  der  Psychoanalyse,  Bd.  IV  and  V. 

5  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  anal-erotic  complex  plays  a  part  in  relation  to  each  of  the  five 
arts,  architectur?,  sculpture,  painting,  music,  and  poetry,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
important  contribution  to  aesthetics  in  general  that  is  provided  by  the  reaction-formation  against 
anal  erotism. 

°See  Jahrbuch,  Bd.  IV,  S.  590,  u.  ff.,  and  also  Hitschmann,  Internal,  Zeitschr.  f.  arztl.  Psycho- 
analyse, Jahrg.  I,  S.  253. 


Ernest  Jones  283 


in  speech,  cherished  the  ambition,  which  he  very  largely  carried 
out,  of  being  able  so  to  construct  his  clauses,  on  a  very  German 
model,  as  to  expel  all  he  might  have  to  say  in  one  massive,  but 
superbly  finished  sentence  that  could  be  flung  out  and  the  whole 
matter  done  with. 

GENERAL   SURVEY 

The  number  of  character  traits  and  interests  ranged  over  in 
the  preceding  remarks  has  been  so  great,  and  the  account  given 
of  them  so  bald,  that  it  may  conduce  to  perspicuity  if  I  once  more 
review  shortly  the  subject  as  a  whole.  One  should  keep  well  in 
mind  the  two  fundamental  phases  of  the  process — the  first  one  of 
"keeping  back"  and  the  second  one  of  "giving  out"  respectively, 
each  of  which  gives  rise  to  its  own  series  of  character  traits. 
With  both  of  them  the  person  strongly  objects  to  being  thwarted, 
to  being  prevented  from  either  "keeping  back"  or  "giving  out," 
as  the  case  may  be ;  this  attitude  may  lead  to  marked  individual- 
ism, self-willedness,  obstinacy,  irritability  and  bad  temper. 
Heavy -mindedness,  dogged  persistence,  and  concentration,  with 
a  passion  for  thoroughness  and  completeness  are  characteristics 
equally  related  to  both  phases. 

Much  of  the  person's  later  character  will  depend  on  the 
detailed  interplay  of  the  attitudes  distinctive  of  each  phase,  and 
on  the  extent  to  which  he  may  react  to  each  by  developing  either 
a  positive  sublimation  or  a  negative  reaction-formation.  The 
sublimations  result  in  two  contrasting  character  types:  on  the 
one  hand  a  parsimonious  and  perhaps  avaricious  one,  with  a 
fondness  for  possessing  and  caring  for  objects,  and  a  great 
capacity  for  tenderness  so  long  as  the  loved  person  is  docile;  on 
the  other  hand,  a  more  creative  and  productive  type,  with  active 
tendencies  to  imprint  the  personality  on  something  or  somebody, 
with  a  fondness  for  moulding  and  manipulating,  and  a  great 
capacity  for  giving,  especially  in  love.  The  reaction -formations 
lead  to  the  character  traits  of  orderliness,  cleanliness,  pedantry, 
with  a  dislike  of  waste;  they  also  afford  important  contributions 
to  aesthetic  tendencies. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  total  result  is  an  extremely  varied 
one,  owing  to  the  complexity  of  the  inter-relations  of  the  different 
anal-erotic  components  with  one  another  and  with  other  con- 
stituents of  the  whole  character.  Some  of  the  most  valuable 
qualities  are  derived  from  this  complex,  as  well  as  some  of  the 
most  disadvantageous.  To  the  former  may  be  reckoned  es- 


284  Anal-Erotic  Character  Traits 

pecially  the  individualism,  the  determination  and  persistence, 
the  love  of  order  and  power  of  organisation,  the  competency, 
reliability  and  thoroughness,  the  generosity,  the  bent  towards 
art  and  good  taste,  the  capacity  for  unusual  tenderness,  and  the 
general  ability  to  deal  with  concrete  objects  of  the  material  world. 
To  the  latter  belong  the  incapacity  for  happiness,  the  irritability 
and  bad  temper,  the  hypochondria,  the  miserliness,  meanness 
and  pettiness,  the  slow-mindedness  and  proneness  to  bore,  the 
bent  for  dictating  and  tyrannising,  and  the  obstinacy  which, 
with  the  other  qualities,  may  make  the  person  exceedingly 
unfitted  or  social  relations. 


IRREGULARITY  IN    A   PSYCHOLOGICAL    EXAMINA- 
TION AS  A  MEASURE  OF  MENTAL  DETERIORATION 

BY  SIDNEY  L.  PRESSEY,  PH.  D.,  AND  LUELLA  W.  COLE,  A.  B. 

THE    PSYCHOPATHIC    HOSPITAL,    BOSTON 

THE  statement  is  frequently  made  that  evidence  of 
deterioration  in  a  mentally  diseased  patient  may  be 
obtained  from  the  "irregularity"  of  the  results  on  a 
psychological  examination.  By  "  irregularity  "  is  usual- 
ly meant  the  degree  of  scatter  in  the  scores  on  a  Binet  scale. 
For  example,  if  a  feeble-minded  case  shows  a  mental  age  of 
nine  years  on  the  scale,  he  usually  has  no  failures  below  the  seven 
year  group  of  tests,  and  succeeds  on  no  tests  above  the  twelve  year 
group,  while  the  psychotic  patient,  in  obtaining  the  same  men- 
tal age,  fails  a  test  which  a  normal  five  year  child  passes,  and 
succeeds  on  tests  of  the  sixteen  year  group. 

General  observation  shows  something  of  this  sort  to  be  true, 
but  surprisingly  little  careful  and  systematic  work  has  been 
done  on  the  subject.  The  present  paper  is  a  brief  report  of 
results  in  an  effort  to  determine  with  some  exactness  the  signifi- 
cance and  reliability  of  irregularity  as  it  appears  in  the  examina- 
tion of  mentally  diseased  individuals.  An  attempt  has  been 
made  to  develop  norms  of  irregularity,  and  put  the  subject  on  a 
more  sound  basis  than  has  hitherto  been  the  case.  Then  on  the 
basis  of  an  analysis  of  these  results  a  special  differential  group  of 
tests  within  the  scale  has  been  formed;  for  this  also  norms  are 
presented,  which  would  indicate  a  very  considerable  degree  of 
reliability  for  this  special  differential  unit. 

As  will  be  pointed  out  later,  irregularity  may  not  always 
have  quite  the  meaning  which  is  usually  given  it.  But  at  least 
it  may  be  said  that  it  suggests  deterioration.  And  as  a  measure 
of  the  reliability  of  the  mental  level  indicated  by  the  examination, 
it  would  seem  to  have  a  wider  value  than  has  usually  been  sup- 
posed. 

The  results  here  reported  are  based  on  a  comparison  of  the 
irregularity  of  a  group  of  feeble-minded  cases  showing  mental 
ages  from  eight  through  twelve  years  with  two  groups  of  psy- 
chotic persons  (dementia  praecox  and  chronic  alcoholics)  giving 
the  same  mental  ages.  The  Point  Scale  was  used.  One  of  the 

285 


286  Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

great  advantages  of  the  "point"  method,  which  seems  to  have 
been  overlooked  so  far,  is  the  simplicity  with  which  a  single  and 
comprehensive  statement  of  irregularity  can  be  obtained1. 

The  irregularity  was  figured  on  the  basis  of  table  30,  p.  123 
of  "A  Point  Scale  for  Measuring  Mental  Ability."  This  table 
gives  the  average  score  in  points  of  the  normal  child  at  each  age, 
for  each  test;  the  data  are  the  same  as  those  on  which  the 
original  Point  scale  norms  for  mental  age  were  figured.  So  the 
average  score  of  eleven  year  children  on  test  one  is  3.0,  on 
test  two  is  3.8,  on  test  three  2.8,  on  test  four  3.7,  etc.  And  if  a 
given  child  testing  at  a  mental  age  of  eleven  scores  3,  4,  3,  5,  on 
these  first  four  tests,  he  shows  variations  from  the  average  or 
irregularities  of  0.0,  0.  2,  0.0,  1.3.  The  sum  of  these  variations 
on  all  the  twenty  tests  will  be  the  total  irregularity;  in  the  case 
just  instanced  this  irregularity  was  14.6  points.  Such  a  state- 
ment of  irregularity  is  easy  to  obtain,  and  should  be  worked  out, 
the  writers  believe,  in  all  cases,  and  recorded  along  with  the 
mental  age  and  coefficient  as  part  of  the  findings. 

Table  I  gives  the  irregularities  for  the  different  groups  as 
thus  figured.  The  irregularity  of  158  feeble-minded  cases3  is 
shown  in  the  first  column,  with  the  average,  mean  variation,  and 
number  of  cases  at  each  mental  age.  In  the  second  column  are 
given  in  the  same  way  the  averages  for  67  dementia  praecox 
patients,  and  in  the  third  column  the  results  for  55  chronic 
alcoholics.  These  last  two  groups  were  examined  at  the  Boston 
Psychopathic  Hospital. 

TABLE  I 

TOTAL  IRREGULARITY  (IN  POINTS) 

Mental    Feeble-minded  Dementia  Chronic 

Age  Praecox  Alcoholics 

Av.   m.  v.  No.  Av.  m.  v.  No.  Av.  m.  v.  No. 

8  17.6  +2.7  (30)          20.1  ±1-9  (4)  20.7  ±   .4  (5) 

9  18.2  ±2.5  (60)          20.9+2.4  (19)  24.4+3.1  (9) 

10  17.7  +1.9  (25)  20.3  +2.2  (10)  24.4  +3.1  (8) 

11  17.0  ±3.1  (27)  20.4  +3.7  (15)  21.8  ±2.9  (14) 

12  17.1  +2.0  (16)  18.9  ±2.3  (19)  19.7  +2.3  (19) 

Av.     17.5  ±2.4  (158)'         20.1  ±2.5  (67)  22.3  +2.4  (55) 

Figures  in  parenthesis  give  the  number  of  cases,  with  total  number  of 
cases  in  each  group  at  the  foot  of  each  column.  The  average  mean  variation 
is  the  average  of  the  mean  variations,  not  the  mean  variation  of  the  averages. 

^ressey  S.  L.  "  Distinctive  Features  in  the  Psychological  Examination  of  Dementia 
Praecox  and  Chronic  Alcoholic  Patients;"  The  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology,  July,  1917. 

2Yerkes  R.  M.,  Bridges  J.  W.,  and  Hardwick  R.  S.,  "A  Point  Scale  for  Measuring 
Mental  Ability;"  Warwick  and  York,  1915. 

"Examined  at  the  Waverley  School  for  the  Feeble-minded. 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  287 

It  will  be  seen  that  for  the  feeble-minded  the  average  is 
quite  consistently  at  17  points  throughout  the  range  of  mental 
ages.  For  the  dementia  praecox  the  averages  are  also  fairly 
constant,  except  for  the  smaller  irregularity  in  the  twelve  year 
group.  A  decrease  in  irregularity  in  the  upper  ages  was,  in  fact, 
to  have  been  expected ;  these  cases  have  deteriorated  less,  and  so 
slow  less  of  a  break-up  in  mentality.  The  results  from  the 
chronic  alcoholics  are  less  consistent.  There  is  here  also  in  the 
upper  ages  less  irregularity — of  the  same  significance  as  the  simi- 
lar results  with  the  dementia  praecox  patients.  But  the  uneven- 
ness  of  the  averages  is  probably  due  to  the  smaller  number  of 
cases,  and  poor  distribution  among  the  different  mental  ages. 
For  the  mental  ages  from  eight  to  twelve,  then,  a  norm  of  17 
points  irregularity  for  the  feeble-minded,  20  points  for  the  de- 
mentia praecox,  and  somewhere  around  22  points  for  the  chronic 
alcoholics  would  seem  indicated.1  The  dementia  praecox 
average  three  points  or  15%,  the  chronic  alcoholics  five  points 
or  29%  more  irregularity. 

The  large  mean  variations  for  all  the  averages  must  be 
noticed,  however.  The  different  groups  overlap  each  other  very 
considerably;  so  25%  of  the  feeble-minded  cases  show  as  much 
irregularity  as  the  average  dementia  praecox — but  only  10%  of 
the  primary  aments  show  as  much  as  the  average  chronic  al- 
coholic. This  overlapping  of  the  groups  must  obviously  be  kept 
in  mind.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  irregularity  of  the 
average  beginning  dementia  praecox  is  very  distinctive  if  25% 
of  feeble-minded  cases  show  irregularity  as  great  as  this.  For 
practical  work  it  is  convenient  to  settle  upon  some  standard  of 
irregularity.  Only  10%  of  the  feeble-minded  show  irregularities 
over  21  points  (the  average  of  the  two  groups  of  psychotics). 
This  is  suggested  as  for  the  present  a  convenient  boundary  line 
of  irregularity;  all  examinations  showing  more  than  21  points 
may  be  considered  irregular.  If  under  21  points,  the  irregularity 
cannot  be  looked  upon  as  more  than  might  be  expected  of  a  fairly 

^he  mean  variations  are  also  averaged  in  the  table,  with  the  idea  that  the  psychotic 
cases  might  show  a  greater  scatter  about  their  mean,  due  to  difference  in  stage  of  the  disease 
in  which  different  cases  might  be,  to  differing  effects  of  the  disease  in  different  individuals, 
and  similar  causes.  So  far  as  the  figures  go  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  such  greater  variabil- 
ity, but  this  may  be  the  result  merely  of  the  smaller  number  of  psychotic  cases. 


288  Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

average  subnormal  individual  where  no  further  factor  of  mental 
disease  was  present.1 

Mentally  diseased  individuals  thus  show  a  greater  irregu- 
larity on  a  psychological  scale  than  do  feeble-minded  cases 
of  the  same  mental  age;  but  the  differences  are  not  so  clear  cut 
and  definite  as  the  distinctly  different  characters  of  the  groups 
might  lead  one  to  expect.  A  natural  supposition  was  that  some 
tests  of  the  scale  were  more  differential  than  others,  and  that 
perhaps  the  results  on  some  tests  actually  cancelled  off  those  on 
others,  thus  obscuring  the  findings.  An  indication  of  the  differ- 
ential value  of  each  test  could  easily  be  obtained,  by  working 
out  the  irregularity  on  each  test,  for  each  group.  This  was 
done ;  the  results  showed  the  greater  irregularity  of  the  psychotic 
cases  to  be  due  largely  to  an  especially  greater  irregularity  on 
tests  ten,  sixteen,  seventeen,  eighteen  and  nineteen.2  These 
tests  were,  therefore,  taken  as  a  special  differential  group,  and 
irregularities  on  these  tests  alone  used,  instead  of  the  total 
irregularity.  The  results  are  given  in  table  II. 

TABLE  II 

IRREGULARITY:  (Differential  tests  only) 

Mental  Feeble-minded       Dementia  Praecox  Chronic  Alcoholics 

Age  (158  cases)  (67  cases)  (55  cases) 

Av.     m.  v.  No.  Av.  m.  v.  No.  Av.  m.  v.  No. 

8  3.1  ±   .9  (30)  6.7  ±   .4  (4)  6.5  ±   .7  (4) 

9  4.4  ±1.1  (60)  5.5  ±1.0  (19)  7.5  ±1.6  (7) 

10  5.3  ±   .9  (25)  6.7  ±   .6  (10)  10.5  ±1.0  (7) 

11  5.0  ±1.5  (27)  8.5  ±1.8  (14)  9.0  ±1.9  (14) 

12  5.4  ±1.0  (16)  7.3  ±1.9  (20)  8.3  ±1.4  (17) 

Av.      4.7  ±1.1  (158)  6.9  ±1.1  (67)  8.2  ±1.3  (49) 

The  figures  in  parenthesis  give  the  number  of  cases  at  each  mental  age. 
The  average  mean  variation  is  the  average  of  the  mean  variations,  not  the 
mean  variation  of  the  averages. 

1  These  figures  obviously  need  much  more  statistical  backing,  but  may  serve  some 
practical  use  as  tentative  norms  of  irregularity.  The  curves  of  distribution  for  the  three 
groups  are  fairly  symmetrical,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  further  figures  will  alter  the  results 
materially.  The  chief  difficulty  in  all  such  work  comes  from  the  fact  that  we  know  so  little 
about  the  examination  given  by  the  normal  and  the  feeble-minded  adult.  The  feeble-minded 
from  whom  the  above  data  were  obtained  were  mostly  children.  The  psychotics  were,  of 
course,  all  adults;  it  is  possible  that  what  seems  distinctive  of  the  psychotic  condition  may  be 
merely  the  result  of  greater  age.  However,  data  which  the  writer  is  now  accumulating  on 
adult  feeble-minded  cases  do  not,  so  far,  bear  out  such  a  conclusion;  the  examinations  are 
surprisingly  similar  to  those  given  by  feeble-minded  children  of  the  same  mental  age. 

^ These  tests  are  in  order  as  follows:  definition  of  familiar  objects  (the  subject  is  asked 
to  define  spoon,  chair,  horse,  baby,  extra  credit  being  given  for  definitions  "superior  to  use" 
— that  is,  describing  or  classifying  the  object) ;  memory  for  Binet  figures  (the  subject  is  asked 
to  draw  from  memory  the  familiar  Binet  designs,  after  fifteen  seconds  exposure) ;  absurdities 
(the  subject  is  asked  what  is  foolish  about  such  statements  as  "  A  little  boy  said,  'I  have  three 
brothers,  Paul,  John  and  myself.'");  dissected  sentences  (the  patient  is  told  to  reconstruct 
the  sentence  from  such  series  of  words  as  "to  asked  paper  my  I  teacher  correct  the."); 
definition  of  abstract  words  (the  patient  is  asked  to  define  charity,  obedience,  justice.) 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  289 

It  will  be  noticed  in  the  first  place  that  while  the  irregularity 
on  these  five  tests  is  only  about  a  third  of  the  total  irregularity 
(see  table  I),  the  difference  between  the  average  for  the  feeble- 
minded and  that  for  the  dementia  praecox  patients  is  about  as 
large  as  before,  and  this  difference  three-fourths  as  large  for  the 
chronic  alcoholics.  In  other  words,  these  five  tests  give  almost 
all  the  differential  indication  of  the  total  twenty  tests.  The 
surprising  feature  is,  however,  the  smaller  amount  of  overlapping 
of  the  groups,  shown  by  the  fact,  that  the  mean  variations  of  the 
averages  are  only  half  as  great  as  before  in  proportion  to  the 
differences  between  them.  Where  25%  of  the  feeble-minded 
showed  as  great  a  total  irregularity  as  the  average  dementia 
praecox,  only  10%  show  as  great  an  irregularity  on  the  differen- 
tial group;  there  are  only  2%  of  the  feeble-minded  with  as  great 
an  irregularity  as  the  average  chronic  alcoholic  on  this  special 
group  of  tests.  For  such  purposes,  one  fourth  of  the  scale  is 
more  accurate  than  is  the  whole  scale. 

Further  work  will,  of  course,  be  needed  before  these  five 
tests  can  be  accepted  as  the  best  of  the  twenty  for  such  a  differen- 
tial group.  But  that  some  such  differential  group  is  more 
satisfactory,  both  in  principle  and  in  practice,  would  seem  clear. 
For  a  trial  of  the  method,  the  differential  group  and  norms  given 
above  are  suggested.  And  as  an  arbitrary  boundary  of  irregu- 
larity six  points  may  be  used;  only  ten  per  cent  of  the  feeble- 
minded show  an  irregularity  over  this,  while  52%  of  the  psychot- 
ics  show  such  an  irregularity — 37%  of  the  dementia  praecox 
and  70%  of  the  chronic  alcoholics. 


The  question  as  to  the  probable  significance  of  irregularity, 
as  thus  found,  remains  briefly  to  be  discussed.  It  is  usually 
assumed  that  irregularity  is  an  indication  of  deterioration.  The 
greater  irregularity  of  the  chronic  alcoholics  as  compared  with 
the  dementia  praecox  is  of  interest  in  this  connection.  The  de- 
mentia praecox  cases  seen  at  the  Psychopathic  Hospital  are  for 
the  most  part  in  the  beginnings  of  the  disease,  and  have  not 
deteriorated  very  appreciably.  The  disease  is  often  very  hard 
to  differentiate  in  its  early  stages,  and  during  the  customary 
brief  stay  at  the  Hospital;  some  thus  diagnosed  turn  out  to  be 
after  all  not  deteriorating  psychoses.  The  chronic  alcoholics, 
on  the  other  hand,  appear  at  the  Hospital  only  after  their  con- 
dition has  gone  from  bad  to  worse  as  the  result  of  years  of  dissipa- 
tion. The  diagnosis  "chronic  alcoholism"  as  used  there  means 
primarily  alcoholic  deterioration  (active  psychoses  more  in- 


290  Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

cidental  to  the  use  of  alcohol,  such  as  delirium  tremens,  or 
alcoholic  hallucinosis,  were  not  included  in  the  above  tables). 
If  irregularity  were  a  measure  of  deterioration,  then,  a  greater 
irregularity  would  be  expected  from  the  chronic  alcoholics. 
That  the  data  show  them  to  have  an  irregularity  some  14% 
greater  than  the  dementia  praecox  would  suggest  that  irregularity 
was,  in  fact,  an  indication  of  a  deteriorated  condition. 

Experience  with  a  large  variety  of  patients  does  not  alto- 
gether bear  out  this  conclusion.  A  psychoneurotic  may  not 
infrequently  give  an  irregular  examination,  so  may  a  manic 
depressive  patient;  in  neither  instance  is  there  deterioration  in 
the  accepted  meaning  of  that  word.  The  examination  may 
sometimes  be  uneven  because  of  physical  illness,  because  merely 
of  headache  resulting  from  "lumbar  puncture."  Irregularity 
suggests  deterioration;  but  the  indication  is  not  so  definite  as  is 
often  supposed. 

However,  marked  irregularity  seems  always  to  mean  inter- 
ference of  some  sort  with  an  examination  satisfactory  for  a 
mental  rating.  This  interference  is  usually,  with  psychotic 
patients,  due  to  deterioration;  it  may  be  the  result  of  a  more 
temporary  negativism,  or  retardation,  or  absorption  in  a  de- 
lusional system.  It  may  be  the  result  of  physical  disease  or 
disability,  or  of  such  an  ill-proportioned  showing  as  comes  from 
malingering.  Whatever  the  cause  irregularity  always  means 
that  there  has  been  some  influence  at  work  which  prevents  the 
examination  giving  a  mental  age  or  coefficient  which  is  a  satis- 
factory indication  of  the  patient's  normal  mental  level. 

Interpreted  in  this  way,  as  a  measure  of  the  reliability  of  the 
examination  for  the  determination  of  a  "mental  age,"  "irregu- 
larity" has  a  wider  meaning  than  has  usually  been  assigned  it. 
A  question  often  arises  as  to  whether  an  alcoholic  is  primarily  a 
moron  addicted  to  alcohol  or  a  normal  individual  who  has  de- 
teriorated. If  the  psychological  examination  is  "irregular"  a 
low  rating  may  be  considered  not  adequate  to  the  patient's 
original  capacity,  and  an  argument  from  the  poor  showing  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  patient  was  originally  feeble-minded  not 
justifiable.  The  irregularity  may  be  due  to  poor  co-operation  due 
perhaps  in  turn  to  an  active  psychosis,  to  physical  illness,  to  malin- 
gering (an  attempt.,  say,  to  feign  mental  defect  to  escape  sentence  for 
some  criminal  offence},  to  deterioration;  as  a  test  for  the  presence 
of  any  such  factors  making  the  mental  age  rating  invalid  ir- 
regularity is  surely  of  more  value  than  if  it  were  sensitive  only  to 
the  last.  Suppose,  then,  such  a  chronic  alcoholic  or  dementia 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  291 

praecox  patient  gives  a  low  and  an  even  examination  —  that  is, 
an  examination  typical  in  its  make-up  of  the  average  feeble- 
minded case,  but  unusual  to  obtain  from  a  psychotic.  The  in- 
ference is  that  there  is  little  deterioration,  or  other  interference  to 
prevent  a  showing  normal  to  the  individual,  and  that  the  patient 
is  a  feeble-minded  alcoholic,  or  a  primary  ament  who  is  beginning 
to  develop  a  psychosis.  Such  a  conclusion  may  make  a  sub- 
stantial difference  in  the  prognosis,  treatment  and  disposition  of 
the  case. 

This  interpretation  of  irregularity  may  seem  somewhat  aside 
from  the  results  which  have  just  been  presented.  But  the  writers 
felt,  on  the  basis  of  an  unusually  varied  experience  with  the  tests, 
that  some  qualification  of  the  natural  conclusion  from  these 
results  as  to  the  relation  of  irregularity  to  deterioration  was 
necessary.  In  fact,  these  results  are  of  interest  and  possible  value 
in  two  quite  different  connections.  In  the  first  place,  the  norms 
for  the  feeble-minded  show  what  irregularity  is  to  be  expected  in 
cases  of  primary  amentia.  Twenty-one  points  total  irregularity, 
and  six  points  with  the  special  group  of  tests  on  which 
irregularity  most  appears,  have  been  suggested  as  boundaries; 
an  irregularity  beyond  these  limits  should  lead  to  a  suspicion 
that  the  examination  was  measuring  something  beside  general 
intelligence.1  There  need  be  no  suspicion  of  mental  disease. 
Illiteracy  may  have  interfered  unduly  with  an  adequate  showing, 
or  the  child  may  be  frightened  at  being  brought  to  the  examiner's 
office  and  unable  to  do  himself  justice,  or  the  patient  may  have 
been  coached  on  some  of  the  tests.  Any  such  factors  influencing 
the  examination  are  likely  to  give  evidence  of  their  presence  in 
an  increased  irregularity.  The  irregularity  thus  serves  as  a 
measure  of  the  reliability  of  the  examination  in  serving  its  pri- 
mary purpdse  —  in  giving  a  measure  of  general  intelligence  in 
normal  (and  feeble-minded)  individuals. 

For  the  purpose  which  has  just  been  described  the  data  on 
the  feeble-minded  are,  the  writer  believes,  sufficient  for  some 
immediate  practical  use.  For  dealing  with  the  further  prob- 
lem, as  to  how  far  a  given  irregularity  (supposing  the  other 
causes  which  have  just  been  mentioned  have  been  eliminated) 
approaches  that  to  be  expected  from  a  deteriorated  patient,  the 
figures  can  hardly  be  thought  of  as  more  than  indicating  the 


an  irregularity  should  lead  first  of  all  to  the  use  of  a  large  number  of  special 
supplementary  tests,  such  as  the  Healy  puzzles,  for  example.  Some  of  these  special  tests 
should  be  tried  with  every  case;  whatever  the  problem,  they  are  sure  to  throw  some  addi- 
tional light  on  it.  In  work  with  psychotic  patients  they  give  more  distinctive  results  than 
do  the  tests  of  the  scale. 


292  Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

probable  results  of  further  research  giving  a  total  amount  of 
data  more  adequate  to  the  problem.  But  as  a  suggestion  of  a 
way  in  which  such  results  might  be  made  most  useful  for  clinical 
work,  the  data  have  been  rehandled  in  the  following  simple 
fashion,  so  that  a  given  number  of  points  irregularity  can  be 
read  directly  as  a  percentage  probability  that  the  case  belongs 
in  the  feeble-minded  group  or  in  the  group  of  the  deteriorating 
psychoses.  The  results  with  dementia  praecox  and  with  chronic 
alcoholics  have  been  combined  into  one  "deterioration"  group, 
and  the  per  cent  of  the  total  group  appearing  at  each  number  of 
points  irregularity  found;  so  6%  show  an  irregularity  of  seven- 
teen points.  Similar  percentages  were  worked  out  for  the 
feeble-minded  cases;  14%  of  these  gave  an  irregularity  of  seven- 
teen points.  The  total  percent  of  the  two  groups  showing  this 
irregularity  is  14  plus  6  or  20;  14  is  76%  of  20.  There  is  thus  a 
70%  probability  that  a  case  showing  an  irregularity  of  seventeen 
points  is  feeble-minded  rather  than  of  the  deteriorating  group. 
The  figures  for  total  irregularity  (with  the  averages  slightly 
smoothed)  run  as  follows: 
No.  of  points 

irregularity          13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28 
%prob.  that 

feeble-minded  100  95  90  84  70  62  50  42  38  27  24  20  18  12  00  00 
No  psychotic  cases  show  an  irregularity  below  fourteen  points, 
therefore  the  probability  is  that  100%  of  cases  with  irregularities 
of  thirteen  are  feeble-minded.  And  no  cases  of  primary  amentia 
show  an  irregularity  over  twenty -six  points;  so  the  probability 
is  00,  that  cases  over  this  are  primary  aments,  or  100%  that  they 
are  psychotic. 

The  probabilities  for  the  special  group  of  five  differential 
tests  are  still  more  interesting. 
No.  of  points 

irregularity  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14 

%prob.  that 

feeble-minded     100  100  95  80  50  27  12  4  00  00  00  00  00 
The  overlapping  is  much  less,  and  the  curve  much  smoother.1 

Some  such  method  as  this  would  appear  to  be  the  ideal  in 
making  most  useful  data  of  this  sort  for  differential  work.  In  a 
single  figure  is  given  the  indication  of  the  results  on  a  given 
patient  with  their  reliability, — and  this  not  merely  at  a  single 

1  Where  the  indication  is  not  definite, — as  with  five,  six,  or  seven  points, — and  in  fact, 
with  all  cases,  such  supplementary  tests  as  have  already  been  referred  to  should  be  used. 
These  appear  to  give  much  more  distinctive  results  than  the  tests  of  the  scale  on  such  cases, 
(see  reference,  note  1.) 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  293 

limiting  irregularity,  but  at  every  irregularity.  Simple  tables 
such  as  these,  for  different  differential  purposes  (writers  are  now 
working  on  a  similar  group  of  tests,  with  similar  norms,  for  the 
feeble-minded  as  compared  with  normal  individuals)  should  add 
immensely  to  the  value  of  the  tests,  as  used  in  clinical  work. 

SUMMARY 

The  paper  may  be  very  briefly  summarized.  It  is  a  study 
of  the  value  of  irregularity  in  a  psychological  examination  as  an 
indication  of  deterioration.  The  Point  Scale  was  used,  and  a 
new  method  of  figuring  irregularity,  more  adaptable  to  practical 
use  than  any  hitherto  employed.  The  conclusions  are  based 
on  data  from  158  feeble-minded,  67  dementia  praecox,  and  55 
chronic  alcoholic  cases,  grading  from  eight  through  twelve  years 
mental  age.  The  conclusions  are  as  follows : 

1.  The  feeble-minded  show  an  average  irregularity  of  17 
points,  dementia  praecox  20  points,  and  chronic  alcoholics  22 
points  irregularity.     Within  these  limits  (8-12)  the  irregularity 
is  practically  constant  from  one  mental  age  to  another.     But  the 
mean  variation  at  each  mental   age  is  large,  making  irregularity 
on  the  total  scale  of  only  rough  value  for  differential  purposes. 

2.  Analysis  of  the  results  shows  certain  tests  (10,  16,  17,  18, 
19)  most  differential.     A  diagnostic  "unit"  composed  of  these 
five     tests     gives     results     much     more     distinctive    of    the 
psychotic  as  against  the  feeble-minded  group.     Such  a  special 
grouping  of  tests  within  the  scale  is  suggested  as  a  new  and 
highly  valuable  means  of  obtaining  differential  results  in  dealing 
with  any  differential  problem. 

3.  Further  consideration  showed  that  irregularity  was  not, 
invariably,  evidence  of  deterioration.     It  might  be  caused  by 
poor  cooperation,  by  illiteracy,  by  malingering,  by  psychotic 
disturbance  of  a  temporary  nature,  or,  finally  by  deterioration. 
However,  it  is  always  evidence  of  some  interference  with  the 
examination  as  a  measure  of  the  individual's  normal  mental  level. 

4.  On  the  basis  of  these  considerations,  it  is  urged  that  for 
practical  work  irregularity  be  considered  as  a  measure  of  the 
freedom  of  the  examination  from  such  factors  as  those  men- 
tioned above — that  is,  a  measure  of  reliability  of  the  examination 
for  the  determination  of  mental  level.     If  a  patient  shows  an 
irregularity  greater  than  that  given  by  feeble-minded  individuals, 
the  examination  cannot  be  used  as  evidence  of  primary  amentia. 
For  the  differentiation  of  subnormality  from  deterioration,  the 
special  differential  group  is  suggested. 


294  Irregularity  in  a  Psychological  Examination 

The  foregoing  paper,  and  an  article  to  follow  dealing  with  the  reliability 
of  the  Point  Scale  for  use  with  adults,  were  written  during  the  summer  of  1917 
and  summarized  at  the  Pittsburgh  meetings  of  the  American  Psychological 
Association  in  December  of  that  year,  but  as  the  result  of  circumstances 
connected  with  the  war  were  delayed  in  publication.  The  paper  dealing  with 
deterioration  is  a  further  report  of  work  carried  out  under  the  direction  of 
Prof.  R.  M.  Yerkes  at  the  Boston  Psychopathic  Hospital  during  the  year 
1916-17  and  outlined  in  the  June  1917  number  of  this  Journal.  The  second 
paper  was  written  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  E.  E.  Southard,  as  of  interest  in 
connection  with  the  proposed  use  of  the  tests  in  the  army.  The  writers  wish 
to  express  their  obligations  to  both  Professor  Yerkes  and  Dr.  Southard  for  the 
problems  and  for  many  valuable  suggestions  in  the  course  of  the  work. 

Some  of  the  statements  made  in  the  two  papers  the  writers  would  be 
inclined,  now,  to  modify,  but  the  essential  conclusions  they  see  no  reason 
for  changing.  In  particular  they  feel  the  concept  of  "irregularity"  to  be  of 
great  practical  and  theoretical  importance.  In  fact,  it  is  not  easy  to  under- 
stand why  some  such  measure  was  not  demanded  much  earlier  in  the  history 
of  testing.  Statistically,  it  would  appear  of  the  first  importance  that  some 
statement  of  the  grouping  or  dispersion  of  the  scores  resulting  from  a  series 
of  measures,  as  well  as  the  average  or  sum  of  those  measures,  should  be  ob- 
tained. The  writers  are  now  working  over  results  from  a  group  scale  of  in- 
telligence in  analogous  fashion. 
Indiana  University, 
February,  1919. 


REVIEWS 

HUMAN  NATURE  AND  ITS  REMAKING.  By  William  Ernest 
Hocking,  Ph.  D.,  Cambridge.  Yale  University  Press,  1918.  Pp.  428. 

This  interesting  book,  which  obviously  embodies  the  results  of  a 
very  liberal  amount  of  thought  and  work,  has  succeeded  in  challenging 
the  careful  attention  of  the  reviewer  and  in  amply  justifying  a  studious 
reading  and  re-reading.  To  any  careful  reader  the  author's  meaning 
becomes  clear,  and  indeed  one  lays  down  the  book  with  a  .sense  of 
admiration  of  the  author's  power  of  definition  and  of  aphoristic  state- 
ment, as  well  as  of  his  discriminative  analysis. 

The  purpose  of  the  work  is  well  presented  in  the  preface.  It  repre- 
sents a  fresh  attempt  to  scrutinize  fairly  the  eager,  often  painfully 
intense,  efforts  that  men  everywhere  are  making,  to  adjust  themselves 
to  their  environment  and  their  environment  to  themselves.  What  is  it 
that  sets  the  standard  for  these  efforts?  How  great  is  the  possibility 
of  change?  Of  what  does  the  driving  force  consist  that — in  social 
matters — forever  impels  some  men  toward  the  life  of  convention  and 
others  toward  the  rebellious  rejection  of  all  authority?  Is  the  whole 
outlook  for  change  to  be  considered  as  dependent  on  eugenics  only, — i.  e 
on  improvement  in  stock?  Or  can  men  induce  alteration  in  them- 
selves, through  will  and  training  and  all  the  forces  that  civilization 
stands  for? 

These  question  have  been  variously  answered.  By  one  group  of 
students  it  is  thought  that  men  are  moved  by  what  the  author  defines 
as  a  real  longing  to  break  loose  from  the  tyranny  of  custom  and  tradi- 
tion, a  longing  classifiable  as  "moral  realism,"  a  term  with  which  the 
author  designates  a  craving  for  pragmatic  goals,  in  philosophy  and  life. 
One  strong  root  of  this  movement  is  the  desire  to  return  to  "nature" 
and  to  see  how  "nature's  plan"  works  out.  But  how  shall  "nature 
and  "natural"  be  conceived  of?  That  is  a  fundamental  question. 

Among  the  various  movements  of  this  class,  of  which  the  author 
speaks,  the  psychoanalytic  movement  of  Freud  comes  in  for  a  con- 
sideration which  is  sympathetic  up  to  a  certain  point.  Its  contribu- 
tion and  aim,  if  limited  are  real. 

"We  find  our  initial  common  ground  with  this  realism 
by  accepting,  for  the  purposes  of  the  argument,  the  picture 
of  original  human  nature  as  a  group  of  'instincts."' 

But  the  mere  fact  that  every  human  being  finds  himself  impelled 
by  "certain  primary  (instinctive)  hungers, "  or  possessed  of  this  or  that 

295 


296  Reviews 

» 

ability  definable  as  an  "instinct,"  does  not  explain  why  he  finds 
satisfaction  in  the  spiritual  goals  of  effort  and  desire,  which,  in  one  form 
or  another,  are  so  congenial  to  the  human  mind.  It  is  only  our  inter- 
pretation of  instincts  that  justifies  the  assigning  of  such  ultimate  mean- 
ings to  them,  for,  of  themselves,  they  give  no  warrant  of  a  capacity  to 
provide  for  men's  higher  powers. 

"Instinct  by  itself  has  no  claims,  because  it  has  no 
head;  it  cannot  so  much  as  say  what  it  wants  except  through 
an  interpreter, " 

i 

whereas,  in  fact,  to  discover  what  one  wants  is  quite  as  much  of  a 
problem  for  intelligence  as  how  to  get  it.  The  great  problems  of  human 
life  are,  in  short,  not  solved  by  this  partial  explanation.  The  attempt 
to  reduce  all  life's  phenomena  to  the  terms  of  conflicts  between  blindly 
working  forces,  whether  they  be  called  reflexes,  tropisms,  or  instincts, 
is  unsatisfactory,  unless,  indeed,  we  stretch  the  definition  of  "instinct" 
so  as  to  make  it  cover  all  that  the  best  men  in  their  best  moments,  may 
desire.  In  fact,  however,  when  these  highly  sublimated  desires  arrive, 
they  find  themselves  at  once  as  much  at  home  and  as  indispensable  as 
do  the  primary  instincts  themselves.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the 
next  essential  step  is  to  "interpret"  instincts  and  to  find  out  what  it  is 
that  human  beings  "want,"  and  why.  "Society"  stands  ready  to 
assume  the  responsibility  of  giving  this  interpretation,  and  the  varied 
pressures  exerted  by  society  are  worthy  of  very  careful  study. 

But  to  accept  the  decision  of  society  as  infallible  would  deprive 
individualism  of  its  responsibilities  and  rights, — and  this  would  be 
intolerable.  The  individual  must  come  finally  to  his  own,  but  this 
can  happen  satisfactorily  only  through  a  genuine  appeal  to  the  re- 
ligious consciousness,  which,  in  fact,  as  an  ultimate  source  of  relatively 
unimpeachable  motive,  furnishes  the  essence  of  whatever  is  now  solid 
in  our  democracies. 

"An  age  of  competition,  like  our  own,  unless  it  is  some- 
thing else  than  competitive,  cannot  be  a  free  age,  however 
democratic  in  structure,  because  its  chief  concerns  are  lateral. 
To  the  competitive  elements  in  our  own  social  order  we  owe 
much : — an  impersonal  estimate  of  worth  in  terms  of  efficiency 
which  we  shall  not  surrender,  a  taste  and  technique  for  se- 
vere self-measurement,  incredible  finesse  in  the  discrimina- 
tion and  mounting  of  individual  talents.  But  we  owe  to  it 
also  an  over-development  of  the  invidious  comparative  eye, 
a  trend  of  attention  fascinated  by  the  powers,  perquisites, 


Reviews  297 

and  opinions  of  the  immediate  neighbors.  The  eternal  stand- 
ard is  obscured:  hence  we  do  nothing  well;  we  lack  sincerity 
and  simplicity;  we  are  suspicious,  disunited,  flabby;  we  do 
not  find  ourselves;  we  are  not  free.  Unless  we  can  recover 
a  working  hold  on  some  kind  of  religious  innervation,  our 
democracy  will  shortly  contain  little  that  is  worthy  to  sur- 
vive. " 

But  although  the  final  appeal  is  to  that  element  in  consciousness 
which  is  definable  as  "religious,"  this  does  not  mean  that  men  should 
cut  loose  from  their  scientific  or  logical  intelligence.  We  ought  to 
"recognize  no  antagonism  between  the  work  of  thought  and  the  voice 

of  religious  intuition and  it  is  one  of  the  permanent 

achievements  of  our  time"  to  have  learned  to  appreciate  this  fact. 
We  must  still  and  forever  reflect  and  interpret,  and  utilize  the  fruits  of 
every  sort  of  study. 

In  accordance  with  this  scheme,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  book 
attempts, — as  every  earnest  piece  of  work  devoted  to  the  issues  here 
in  question  should, — to  study  human  life  in  accordance  with  the 
historical,  or  genetic,  method,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand 
in  obedience  to  an  absolutely  unquenchable  impulse  to  get  beyond  the 
limits  and  conclusions  established  by  this  method.  The  author  faces 
boldly  the  difficulties  of  the  situation,  and  after  defining  and  discussing 
the  tenets  of  Christianity  as  best  representative  of  the  religious  prin- 
ciple, he  admits  that  the  problems  which  we  would  like  solved  can  be 
absolutely  solved,  not  by  saying  that  our  religious  dreams  and  ideals 
are  "probably"  true,  but  only  by  striving  to  solve  the  question  whether, 
as  a  matter  of  fact  the  world  does  correspond  to  these  dreams  and  these 
ideals. 

In  the  final  chapter  he  expresses  a  doubt  as  to  "whether  philosophy 
can  affirm  the  existence  of  this  'fact.' "  If  it  is  affirmed  it  must  be  on 
the  basis  of  something  "personally  experienced  or  'revealed.'" 

In  order  to  decide  the  question,  "What  sort  of  world  is  it  that  we 
live  in?"  one  must  then  inquire,  "What  sort  of  world  have  we  been  liv- 
ing in?  What  have  been  the  metaphysical  foundations,  real  or  sup- 
posed real,  for  those  qualities,  those  instinct  shapes  which  characterize 
our  present  human  type?" 

Illusion  and  disillusionment  present  themselves  at  every  turn,  as 
one  analyzes  more  deeply  these  difficult  problems  of  the  striving  will 
and  striving  imagination.  What  one  longs  for  is  a  demonstration  that 
that  which  is  sought  has  been  found.  Men  "need  reality  to  climb  on; 
they  need  a  reality  they  can  climb  on. "  The  mystical  quality  which 
seems  to  be  in  men  as  an  integral  part  of  their  equipment  claims  the 


$98  Reviews 

ability  to  recognize  this  reality,  but  the  critic  in  man,  who  is  likewise 
there  by  the  same  inherent  right,  is  compelled  to  go  on  demanding 
proof. 

"Absence  of  belief  that  the  world  as  a  whole  has  an  active 
individual  concern  for  the  creatures  it  has  produced  need 
neither  destroy  happiness  nor  the  morality  of  compassion 
.  .  .  Instinct  has  its  satisfactions  in  an  uninterpreted  or 
partly  interpreted  condition:  it  will  reach  some  accommo- 
dation to  the  world  that  is.  Nothing  would  necessarily  be 
destroyed  or  lost  from  the  good  life  which  some  at  least  of  the 
human  race  now  know  and  many  hope  for, — nothing  except 
the  higher  reaches  of  curiosity  and  sympathy,  and  the  wis- 
dom of  developing  them. " 

In  the  last  sentences  of  this  chapter,  of  which  that  just  quoted  is 
one,  the  writer  seems  to  reach  a  conclusion  which  to  many  persons 
would  be  felt  as  unsatisfying.  But,  in  fact,  it  is  evident  that  the  writer 
himself  believes  in  pushing  forward,  in  obedience  to  one's  instructed 
intuition,  to  the  farthest  point,  and  recognizes  that  the  world  has 
hitherto  shown  itself  more  hospitable  to  lives  conducted  in  accordance 
with  this  principle  than  those  conducted  in  any  other  way.  It  is  thus, 
in  other  words,  that  the  "total  will"  finds  its  best  satisfaction. 

These  broad  final  conclusions,  here  very  inadequately  sketched, 
are  not  arrived  at,  it  should  be  understood,  until  after  the  other  at- 
tempts to  find  satisfying  goals  have  been  thoroughly  and  analytically 
discussed.  The  author  begins  by  inquiring  what  "human  nature"  is 
made  up  of,  that  men  alone,  among  the  animals,  strive  constantly  to 
re-make,  and  then  describes  the  various  means  by  which  this  process 
of  re-making  can  take  place.  Thus,  in  Part  II,  the  natural,  or  instinc- 
tive, man  is  studied.  Then  in  Part  III,  the  intervention  of  conscience 
is  described;  in  Part  IV,  that  of  experience;  in  Part  V,  the  modelling 
due  to  society  is  discussed;  in  Part  VI,  that  of  art  and  religion;  in  Part 
VII,  the  influence  and  essential  meaning  of  Christianity.  Finally 
comes  the  chapter  called  "The  Last  Fact"  to  which  I  already  have 
referred. 

So  many  are  the  details  in  all  this  discussion  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible here  to  do  them  justice.  One  of  the  most  important  chapters, 
perhaps,  is  that  on  the  instincts,  in  the  treatment  of  which  the  author 
differs  from  most  writers  in  recognizing — justly,  as  I  think — that  what 
he  calls  the  "central"  or  "necessary"  instincts, — those  which  are  re- 
lated to  the  order  usually  spoken  of  as  the  "higher  functions"  of  life, — 
are  just  as  primary  as  those  automatic  tendencies  which  we  call  in- 


Reviews  299 

stincts  in  a  narrower  sense.  The  "  will, "  which  is  closely  related  to  the 
instincts,  is  described  as  a  "stable  policy"  which  is  gradually  adopted 
by  the  intelligence,  and  the  term  "will  to  power,"  in  spite  of  its  un- 
fortunate connotations  is  given  a  meaning  which,  instead  of  implying 
a  desire  for  personal  and  selfish  acquisition,  makes  it  equally  well 
adapted  to  serve  as  a  social  function  in  the  best  sense.  One  wills 
power  in  order  to  protect,  as  well  as  in  order  to  overcome  in  competi- 
tion. 

In  a  similar  way,  "pugnacity"  emerges  from  its  "dialectic"  as 
an  indispensable  quality  of  great  value. 

In  the  course  of  the  book  various  attempts  are  made  to  do  justice 
to  the  views  of  other  observers,  amongst  whom  is  Freud.  To  set  forth 
to  what  extent  justice  has  been  done  to  the  important  movement  for 
which  Freud  stands  would  require  more  space  than  this  review  has 
the  right  to  claim.  It  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  those  who  have 
devoted  their  lives  to  the  almost  exclusive  study  of  the  "unconscious" 
influences  that  sway  men's  thoughts  and  acts,  could  be  fully  satisfied 
with  any  statement  that  was  not  based  upon  a  study  equally  compre- 
hensive with  their  own,  since  it  is  only  by  feeling  one's  way  into  the 
heart  of  this  mystery  through  the  difficult  medium  of  practical  expe- 
rience, that  complete  sympathy  with  the  point  of  view  there  given  can 
be  reached.  The  handicaps  to  moral  re-making  as  given,  for  example, 
by  Dr.  J.  T.  MacCurdy  in  his  essay  on  the  Psychology  of  War1,  deserve 
careful  discussion,  though  I  do  not  regard  them  as  conclusive.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  Freudian  point  of  view, 
which,  after  all,  studies  only  the  "under  world"  of  human  nature, 
cannot  claim  to  be  comprehensive  in  its  furnishing  of  data  for  an  ade- 
quate view  of  men  as  they  exist,  especially  from  the  stand-point  of  the 
"total  will. "  For  a  long  time  to  come  it  will  probably  remain  true  that 
the  two  classes  of  students  who  investigate,  respectively,  the  man  of 
conscious  striving,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  man  who  is  subjected  to 
unconscious  cravings,  on  the  other  hand,  will  be  somewhat  at  cross- 
purposes  with  one  another.  More  and  more,  however,  the  discrepan- 
cies between  the  conclusions  which  they  reach  will  be  eliminated,  and 
it  will  undoubtedly  be  found  that  the  final  assignment  of  place  and 
importance  will  rest  with  persons  who,  like  the  author  of  this  book, 
see  human  life  most  clearly  as  actively  tending  toward  spiritual  goals 
and  "total  meanings,"  which  are  inadequately  defined  as  "sublima- 
tion." 

JAMES  J.  PUTNAM,  M.  D. 

»The  Psychology  of  War.     B  J.  T.  MacCurdy,  M.  D.     William  Hcinemann,  1917. 
Pp.68 


300  Reviews 

PSYCHICAL  PHENOMENA  AND  THE  WAR.  By  Hereward  Carring- 
ton,  Ph.  D.,  Author  of  "Death:  Its  Causes  and  Phenomena,"  "The 
Problems  of  Psychical  Research,"  "The  Coming  Science,"  "The 
Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism,"  "Death  Deferred,"  etc.  New 
York:  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  1918.  Pp.  363.  $2.00  net. 

This  volume  is  divided  into  two  parts :  Part  I,  dealing  with  normal 
phenomena,  and  Part  II,  dealing  with  so-called  supernormal  phe- 
nomena. 

Part  I  discusses  "German  Methods  of  Warfare,"  with  the  psy- 
chology of  the  doctrine  of  f rightf ulness,  and  then  offers  two  chapters  on 
the  "Psychology  of  the  Soldier,"  during  mobilization,  in  the  canton- 
ments, in  the  trenches,  during  the  attack,  pain,  shell-shock,  dreams, 
sleep  and  fatigue.  This  is  a  very  good  summary  of  the  soldier's  be- 
havior at  different  periods  and  under  varying  conditions. 

Part  II,  dealing  with  socalled  supernormal  phenomena,  comprises 
eight  chapters,  which  take  up,  in  order,  the  following  topics:  "Psy- 
chical Phenomena,  Science  and  the  War;"  "Psychic  Phenomena 
Amidst  the  Warring  Nations;"  "Prophecies  and  Premonitions;" 
"Apparitions  and  Dreams  of  Soldiers;"  "Clairvoyant  Descriptions  of 
Death;  Death  Described  by  'Spirits'":  "Our  Soldiers  Yet  Live;" 
"Communications  From  Soldiers  who  have  'Died'";  and  "The 
Spiritual  Revival  Awakened  by  the  War." 

Those  who  believe  in  spiritism  or  even  mental  telepathy  may 
agree  with  the  writer  wholly  or  partly.  Those  who  do  not  or  cannot 
believe  in  these  possibilities  or  perhaps  regard  belief  in  them  as  itself 
a  psychological  state  requiring  study  and  analysis,  will  not  be  con- 
vinced by  the  evidence  accumulated  and  here  offered. 

The  layman  who  has  not  made  up  his  mind  whether  to  believe  or 
disbelieve,  may  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  author's  contentions 
by  the  reading  of  the  second  part  of  this  book,  especially  if  he  comes  to 
the  reading  of  it  with  the  "will-to-believe."  The  chapter  heading 
"Our  Dead  Soldiers  Yet  Live,"  and  the  speaking  of  soldiers  who  have 
died,  but  with  quotations  about  the  word  died,  thus:  "Died,"  tell  the 
tale. 

Many  of  us  wish  it  were  true.  But  we  must  face  reality.  And 
so  we  find  ourselves  compelled  to  disbelieve. 

And  so  we  shall,  in  all  friendliness  and  kindliness,  agree  to  disagee. 

MEYER   SOLOMON. 

A  REFERENCE  HANDBOOK  OF  THE  MEDICAL  SCIENCES.  By  Vari- 
ous Writers.  Third  edition,  completely  revised  and  rewritten,  edited  by 
Thomas  Lathrop  Stedman,  A.  M.,  M.  D.  New  York:  William  Wood 
and  Company,  1913  to  1917.  Eight  imperial  octavo  vols.,  29x23 


Reviews  301 

c.  m.  Illustrated  by  over  6,000  text-engravings  and  over  60  full-page 
lithographic  plates  in  color  and  tint.  Pp.  7273  of  type  as  small  as  is 
expedient.  Price,  $56.00. 

The  third  edition  of  this  adequate  medical  encyclopedia,  ably 
edited  by  the  editor-in-chief  of  the  Medical  Record,  New  York,  is  espe- 
cially note-worthy  as  a  war-means  toward  financial  economy  and  con- 
servation. For  the  actual  working  use  of  the  really  busy  practitioner 
this  one  elaborate  treatise  on  Medicine  represents  monographs  costing 
at  least  four  times  as  much, — and  often,  be  it  noted,  providing  far 
more  exactly  what  the  hurried  reader  seeks:  competent  opinion  ex- 
pressed in  the  desirable  conciseness.  The  editor  claims  that  "no  such 
number  of  prominent  writers  and  teachers  has  ever  before  been  associ- 
ated together  in  the  preparation  of  a  work  especially  designed  for  the 
Medical  Profession;"  this  statement  careful  acquaintance  tends  to 
support.  In  number  these  authors  are  several  hundred,  and  none  of 
them  a  foreigner. 

The  articles  on  psychoanalysis,  psychasthenia,  and  the  psycho- 
neuroses  are  by  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe,  as  also  is  that  on  the  classification  of 
mental  diseases.  Wm.  A.  White  prepared  a  useful  paper  on  the  exam- 
ination and  diagnosis  of  mental  diseases;  Henry  J.  Berkley  on  their 
etiology;  Adolf  Meyer  on  their  pathology;  Henry  R.  Stedman  on  their 
prognosis;  Charles  P.  Bancroft  a  finely  illustrated  treatise  on  their 
symptomatology;  and  T.  H.  Kellogg  the  discussion  of  the  treatment 
of  mental  cases.  Dementia  precox  is  described  by  H.  R.  Stedman 
both  wisely  and  with  sufficient  completeness — in  fact,  it  is  one  of  the 
best  accounts  of  this  concept  known  to  me.  Jelliffe  treats  of  the 
phobias  also,  and  of  hysteria.  Judson  Herrick  has  done  the  elaborate 
and  up-to-date  articles  on  the  brain  and  on  the  cord,  (Edw.  W.  Taylor, 
M.  Allen  Starr,  and  J.  J.  Walsh  discuss  some  of  the  diseases  of  the 
cord),  but  Leon  Solis-Cohen  writes  the  account  of  "the  sympathetic" 
and  its  disorders. 

There  is  much  medical  biography  in  this  "Reference  Handbook," 
hundreds  of  names,  one  might  judge,  being  discussed,  enlivened  with 
many  valuable  portraits.  There  are  many  psychological  articles. 

The  war-phases  of  Medicine  are  amply  treated  of  in  the  later 
volumes  especially,  prepared  after  the  beginning  of  the  Hunnish  mega- 
lomainac's  attempt  to  crush  the  world, — the  apotheosis  of  madness 
that  is  also  crime. 

In  every  way  this  work  is  worthy  of  its  editor,  its  publishers,  and 
of  its  American  authors,  and  should  be  on  the  book-shelves  of  every 
physician  who  would  keep  up  with  these  in-some-respects  rapid  times. 

GEORGE  V.  N.  DEARBORN. 

Sargent  Normal  School 


SOCIETY  NOTES 

Golden  Jubilee 
Victory  Celebration  Meeting 

The  Fiftieth  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Medical 
Editors'  Association  will  be  held  at  the  Marlborough-Blenheim 
Hotel,  Atlantic  City,  on  Monday  and  Tuesday,  June  9  and  10, 
and  will  take  the  form  of  a  semi-centennial  celebration  and  a 
Victory  Meeting,  emphasizing  the  part  which  this  Association 
and  its  members  have  taken  in  the  World's  war. 

The  enthusiasm  manifested  upon  the  part  of  the  President, 
Ex-Presidents  and  Officers  of  this  Association  is  an  assurance 
of  its  successful  outcome. 

A  most  attractive  program  is  now  being  prepared  and  every 
physician,  even  remotely  interested  in  medical  journalism,  will 
find  it  to  his  advantage  to  attend. 


302 


THE  JOURNAL  OF 
ABNORMAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


VOL.  XIII  FEBRUARY,  1919  NUMBER  6 

ORIGINAL  ARTICLES 


WHAT  IS  THE  PROBLEM  OF  STUTTERING? 

BY  MARGARET  GRAY  BLANTON  AND  CAPTAIN  SMILEY 
BLANTON,   B.    S.,   M.    D. 

OF   what   material   is   speech    built?     What  processes 
unite  to  turn  many  thousands  of  unrelated  move- 
ments into  the  co-ordinated  thing  which  is  called 
speech?     With  what  is  man  endowed  that  enables 
him  to  accomplish  this  seemingly  impossible  adaptation  of  both 
the  voluntary  and  the  semivoluntary  mechanisms? 

Although  man  inherits,  apparently,  a  steadily  improving 
impulse  for  speech,  no  definite  speech  faculty  is  discoverable  at 
birth.  "Nor  only"  says  Baldwin2,  "do  we  fail  to  find  (in  in- 
fancy) the  series  of  centers  into  which  the  organic  basis  of  speech 
has  been  divided,  but  even  those  which  have  not  taken  up  their 
function,  either  alone  or  together,  which  they  perform  when 
speech  is  actually  realized.  In  other  words  the  primary  object 
of  each  of  the  various  centers  involved  is  not  speech,  but  some 
other  and  simpler  function;  and  speech  arises  from  a  union  of 
these  separate  functions." 

What  is  true  of  the  brain  centers  of  speech  is  true  of  the 
rest  of  the  physical  mechanism  of  speech.  Each  of  the  muscles, 
bones  and  integuments  involved  in  speech  finds  its  primary 
function  in  some  act  more  fundamental  from  a  biological  view- 
point. Only  the  vocal  cords  remain  primarily  for  speech  and 
only  then  if  inarticulate  cries  are  so  considered.  The  diaphragm 
is  used  for  life  breathing,  the  tongue  for  taste,  the  teeth  for 

'Neuro-Psychiatric  Unit,  Medical  Corps,  U.  S.  Army. 
2Baldwin,  James  M.,  "Mental  Development." 

Copyright  1919  by  Richard  0.  Badger.     All  Rights  Reserved. 

303 


304  What  is  the  Problem  of  Stuttering  ? 

grinding,  and  the  nasal  cavity,  sinuses,  etc,  have  their  primary 
function  far  removed.  The  various  brain  centers  which  are 
utilized  later  for  the  production  of  speech  find  their  primary 
function  as  mucular-motor,  auditori-motor,  visual-motor,  etc. 

Speech,  therefore,  may  not  be  considered  as  a  unit  of  ac- 
tivity but  a  sum  total  of  motor  activity  divided  into  arbitrary 
sound  units  and  presented  with  a  definite  relation  which  we  have 
come  to  accept  and  understand  as  having  a  certain  symbolic 
meaning. 

But  there  has  been  incorporated  into  these  different  words 
and  sentences  something  more  than  sound.  There  is  rhythm, 
for  instance,  without  which  it  would  be  a  mere  jumble  of  unin- 
telligibleness, and  there  is  inflection,  which  includes  pitch, 
essential  to  the  full  understanding  of  the  sentence. 

Speech  may  be  said  to  be  an  adaptive  process.  But  what 
fails  in  the  speech  of  the  stutterer?  What  dis-harmony,  what 
asynthesis  exists?  Let  us  consider  it  as  a  symptom  of  an  illness 
of  the  adaptive  processes  rather  than  a  disease  entity. 

There  may  be  a  rough  grouping  of  stuttering  under  two 
heads:  normal  and  pathological.  But  as  would  be  expected 
these  types  overlap  and  are  not  constant. 

Normal  stuttering  is  present  in  most  people  at  some  time. 
It  may  be  seen  when  the  emotions  heighten  the  glandular  ac- 
tivities and  the  motor  output  outruns  the  mental  need.  We 
say  then  'speech  comes  faster  than  thought.'  Sometimes  the 
reverse  of  this  may  be  true  where  fright,  fear  of  betrayal,  fear  of 
criticism,  slows  up  the  processes  of  thinking  but  the  rate  of  motor 
output  remains  normal.  In  either  case  this  lack  of  balance  is 
called  stuttering. 

The  Pathological  stutter  presents  a  different  picture  although 
the  physical  characteristics  of  the  symptom  itself  are  not  dis- 
similar. There  is  first,  a  break  in  the  rhythm  of  speech,  the 
immediate  cause  of  which  is  a  repetition  or  a  prolongation  or  a 
witholding  of  sound.  Second,  a  change  in  the  amount  of  in- 
flection, either  above  or  below  the  normal  amount.  These 
symptoms  lack  constancy.  No  one  stutters  on  every  sound  at 
all  times.  Many  do  not  stutter  on  any  selected  group  of  sounds 
either  vowel  or  consonant,  and  many  who  do  stutter  on  certain 
selected  sounds  do  not  do  so  at  every  repetition  of  the  sound. 

The  clinical  picture  which  presents  itself  to  the  mind  is  a 
repetition  or  withholding  or  prolonging  of  the  sound  of  the  first 
word  stressed;  followed  by  jerky,  monotonous,  broken  phrases 


Margaret  Gray  Blanton  and  Captain  Smiley  Blanton      305 

or  sentences;  in  turn  followed  by  words,  phrases,  or  sentences 
spoken  smoothly  but  either  too  rapidly  or  too  slowly  and  either 
under  or  over  inflected.  This  may  vary  greatly.  Sometimes 
periods  of  months,  weeks,  days,  may  pass  in  which  no  stuttering 
appears,  and  then  some  period  of  mental  or  physical  stress  or 
lack  of  tone  renews  it.  Contrary  to  the  generally  accepted 
statement  it  does  sometimes  come  even  when  the  patient  is 
alone,  as  even  a  brief  study  under  the  proper  conditions  will 
demonstrate. 

The  Frequency  of  its  occurrence  is  computed  from  question- 
naires and  surveys  to  be  about  .9  of  one  percent  of  the  school 
population.  If  to  this  were  added  the  relatively  much  higher 
percentage  among  the  mentally  deficient  the  average  would  in 
all  probability  be  one  percent. 

Sex.  It  predominates  in  the  male  in  proportion  of  three 
to  one.  Contrary  to  a  recent  statement  made  in  the  literature, 
it  does  exist  in  the  female. 

Hygienic  surroundings  are  of  greatest  importance.  Poor 
nutritional  conditions,  poor  sleeping  arrangements,  late  hours, 
over  stimulation,  lack  of  opportunity  for  muscular  development, 
and  above  all  poor  sex-hygiene,  all  predispose  to  it. 

The  Age  of  onset  can  be  given  with  less  accuracy  as  stuttering  is 
a  condition  which,  like  the  other  disturbances  of  adaptation,  often 
goes  unnoticed  until  it  becomes  inconvenient  to  the  social  group. 
It  is  most  often  noticed  first  upon  some  conspicuous  occasion 
such  as  the  first  day  of  school,  when  some  platform  recitation 
is  undertaken  or  after  some  fall  or  accident.  Occasionally  it  is 
first  noticed  by  strangers  or  others  than  the  immediate  members 
of  the  family  with  whom  the  child  has  been  associated.  The 
three  main  periods  of  onset  are,  (1)  the  beginning  of  speech,  (2) 
when  the  adaptations  are  strained  by  the  beginnings  of  school 
life  and  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  present  school  routine 
and,  (3)  at  the  first  pronounced  period  of  sexual  stress  from  nine 
to  fourteen. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  present  war  the  records  show  a 
maximum  of  a  half  dozen  who  have  become  stutterers  after  the 
age  of  eighteen.  A  high  percentage  of  war  neurosis  cases  show 
this  particular  motor-disturbance  of  speech. 

Another  element  obtrudes  itself  in  the  observation  of  the 
age  of  onset,  and  that  is  the  general  indifference  of  the  family  to 
the  condition  of  stuttering.  This  attitude  is  unfortunately 
implanted  in  the  mind  of  the  too  willing  parent  by  the  ignorant 


306  What  is  the  Problem  of  Stuttering  ? 

physician,  who  fosters  the  belief  that  the  child  will  "outgrow  it. " 
How  this  superstition  can  have  persisted  in  the  face  of  the  over- 
whelming evidence  against  it  in  the  presence  of  a  large  number  of 
mature  stutterers  will  ever  remain  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
working  of  the  medical  mind. 

There  is  an  unfortunate  belief  that  all  children  stutter.  All 
children  do  pass  through  a  stage  when  speech,  from  being  a 
mere  motor  output  becomes  a  vehicle  for  the  presentation  of 
ideas,  and  the  process  of  translation  slows  up  and  makes  halting 
the  speech  processes.  This  is  a  period  of  great  danger  to  the 
development  of  good  speech,  as  here  an  illness  which  delays  the 
normal  progress  may  block  and  slow  up  the  motor  output  or  in 
other  ways  interrupt  the  synthesis  which  must  exist  between  the 
idea  and  its  motor  expression. 

There  is  also  the  lisping  of  early  childhood  and  the  "in- 
dividual speech"  encouraged  by  lack  of  adaptation  to  the  con- 
ditions imposed  on  children  by  the  uncomfortable  facts  of  life, 
and  by  the  ignorance  and  thoughtlessness  of  parents.  These 
things  may  confuse  the  diagnosis  until  the  gradually  growing 
conspicuousness,  as  the  age  passes  in  which  these  other  condi- 
tions are  permissible,  brings  the  stuttering  child  in  contrast  to 
his  social  background. 

How  often  stuttering  is  related  to  lisping  has  not  been 
demonstrated,  but  our  experience  leads  us  to  believe  that  it  is 
much  nearer  than  the  literature  suggests.  Not  only  the  type  now 
called  "neurotic  lisping"  but  also  those  heretofore  classed  as 
mechanical  and  negligent.  For  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  in 
the  vast  majority  of  mechanical  conditions,  with  the  exception 
perhaps  of  protracted  lower  jaw,  full  intelligence  unhandicapped 
by  mal-adaptation  will  find  an  overcompensation  for  the  con- 
dition that  will  answer  the  purpose  of  clear  speech. 

Injudicious  and  even  well  adapted  treatment  for  lisping 
may  bring  on  the  condition  of  stuttering  in  cases  where  the  pre- 
disposition is  especially  strong,  by  calling  attention  to  the 
mechanical  processes  of  speech,  which  processes  should  rightly 
be  automatic. 

Stuttering  is  even  encouraged  in  young  children  by  ig- 
norant adults  who  repeat  what  the  child  has  said  with  an  air  of 
approval  and  amusement  and  thus  foster  the  possibility  of  its 
repetition ;  or  by  over  anxiety  and  correction  which  added  to  the 
condition  already  existing  gives  rise  to  speech-fear. 

Padromal  Symptoms.     Stuttering  has,  to  the  trained  ob. 


Margaret  Gray  Blanton  and  Captain  Smiley  Blanton      307 

server  a  rather  definite  incipient  stage.  Certain  conditions  which 
precede  stuttering  bear  not  so  much  a  relationship  of  cause  and 
effect  as  of  that  of  a  padrome.  The  lisp,  the  oral  inactivity  which 
includes  the  large  group  erroneously  called  tongue-tie,  huskiness 
of  the  voice,  slurring,  over  inflected,  monotonous,  over  rapid 
or  too  slow  speech  all  point  to  a  general  impairment  or  lack  of 
developmentof  the  adaptive  faculties  which  are  utilized  by 
speech. 

Speech  and  motor  pressure  is  nearly  always  present  with 
stuttering.  This  is  probably  due  to  two  factors,  (1)  to  some 
glandular  disorder  which  would  seem  to  be  indicated  by  the 
fact  that  the  pressure  remains  even  in  the  presence  of  the  tre- 
mendously advanced  motor  output,  (2)  in  some  cases  to  the 
repression  of  speech  imposed  in  order  to  appear  normal.  Tics 
of  the  face,  legs,  and  arms,  as  well  as  the  diaphragm  are  often 
present.  Tics  of  the  diaphragm  occasionally  seen  where  there 
are  so  marked  disturbances  of  speech  are  also  a  premonitory 
symptom  of  stuttering. 

The  Temperamental  Picture  presented  by  the  frank  stutterer 
is  rather  constant.  Mental  states  which  may  be  considered 
indicative  are  overboldness,  a  compensation  for  timidity;  ex- 
treme competitiveness  and  a  tendency  to  become  inaccessible. 
There  is  often  an  emotional  irritability  and  instability,  alter- 
nating with  mild  depression  in  which  these  patients  sometimes 
suicide.  There  are  also  ideas  of  reference  and  a  certain  morbid 
belligerence. 

Sex-Marriage.  Dr.  William  Healy  (The  Individual  Delin- 
quent) found  the  stutterer  prone  to  homo-sexuality.  This  may 
be  partly  due  to  the  exclusion  of  the  opposite  sex,  forced  on  the 
stutterer  by  his  disorder,  but  also,  surely,  by  the  natural  lack  of 
adaptation  and  egocentric  trend. 

These  patients  are  usually  over  attached  to  the  parent  of 
the  opposite  sex,  a  fact  noted  by  writers  on  the  subject  who 
antedate  a  study  of  the  Freudian  theory  in  this  country  (Potter 
"Speech  and  its  Defects"  1882).  It  is  not  unusual  to  see  these 
patients  sleeping  with  the  parent  of  the  opposite  sex  until  the 
advanced  age  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  and  sometimes  later.  These 
conditions  are  often  hard  to  remedy,  due  not  so  much  to  the  in- 
sistence of  the  patient  as  of  the  parent  who  rationalizes  her 
desire  in  every  imaginable  way  to  have  close  physical  contact 
with  her  child.  Often  the  child  is  withdrawn  from  treatment 
even  when  success  is  apparently  crowning  effort,  as  though  the 


308  What  is  the  Problem  of  Stuttering 

symptom  of  stuttering  had  an  emotional  value  to  the  parent 
herself  who  thus  wishes  to  preserve  the  tie  by  an  exclusion  of 
the  outside  world. 

In  the  parent  there  is  likely  to  be  a  great  deal  of  lack  of 
adaptability  in  the  sex  relationship. 

As  might  be  expected  the  families  of  these  patients  present 
a  picture  very  nearly  as  constant.  They  show,  when  not  the 
stutter,  the  markedly  neurotic  symptomatology  which  the 
patients  themselves  exhibit,  a  fact  often  overlooked  by  those  who 
contend  that  the  neurotic  condition  is  the  end  result  rather  than 
a  contributing  cause  of  stuttering. 

The  families  of  these  patients  often  abound  in  strange  re- 
ligious and  esoteric  beliefs,  "Christian  Science",  Pacivism  and 
many  other  types  of  withdrawal  from  reality  not  being  excep- 
tional, and  extreme  religiosity  as  well  as  sex-perversions  can 
sometimes  be  postulated.  Often  where  these  individualistic 
outlets  are  absent  especial  talents  in  the  arts  may  be  found. 
Many  seem  to  come  of  families  of  more  than  the  ordinary 
musicianship. 

A  constant  factor  in  the  family  history  of  the  stutterer  is 
the  presence  of  speech  and  vocal  troubles.  This  includes  not 
only  stuttering  but  also  such  defects  as  extremely  rapid,  weak, 
slurring,  highpitched  speech  and  voice.  One  case-record  ex- 
emplifies this  very  nicely.  The  patient,  a  stutterer  is  a  boy  of 
ten.  The  mother  has  very  rapid  and  almost  unintelligible 
speech,  as  has  also  one  sister.  Two  other  sisters  have  the  same 
defect  in  a  less  degree,  one  has  a  chronically  hoarse  voice  and  one 
speaks  so  slowly  as  to  appear  quite  ludicrous.  All  lisped  unusual- 
ly late  and  more  than  normally  and  one  brother,  whose  speech  is 
now  otherwise  very  good,  still  has  trouble  writh  the  formation 
of  the  letter  "s"  although  there  is  no  mal-formation  or  occlusion. 
A  paternal  grandfather  stuttered.  This  family  are  all  excep- 
tionally intelligent,  vivacious  and  interesting.  Temperamental- 
ly they  are  unstable  and  show  lack  of  the  ability  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  marriage  relation.  Two  members  show  some  of 
the  marked  symptoms  of  epilepsy.  Nearly  all  have  well  de- 
veloped musical  talent. 

There  seems  in  all  this  family,  as  in  the  patient  himself,  to 
to  be  some  weakness  in  some  of  the  fields  onto  which  speech  may 
be  said  to  be  grafted,  or  a  weakness  in  the  co-ordinational  centers 
themselves.  An  additional  fact  of  interest  is  that  three  of  the 
children  did  not  talk  until  the  third  year  and  all  were  somewhat 


Margaret  Gray  Blanton  and  Captain  Smiley  Blanton      309 

slow  in  developing  speech  and  had  a  limited  vocabulary  during 
development. 

The  Prognosis  for  spontaneous  recovery  can  not  be  made 
with  any  degree  of  accuracy.  A  large  number  of  cases  do  get  well 
without  and  sometimes  in  spite  of  assistance  and  treatment.  In 
what  percentage  this  occurs  it  is  even  of  doubtful  value  to  guess 
because  the  statistics  of  the  existence  of  stuttering  have  been  so 
incomplete,  and  the  case  records  are  so  very  limited  in  number 
and  scope. 

"  Cures  are  obtained  by  various  methods,  varying  as  in  the 
case  of  the  other  illnesses  of  adaptation  from  suggestion  to 
'nerve  medicine,"  The  various  schemes  of  punishment  and 
distraction  sometimes  relieve  this  symptom  but  too  much  em- 
phasis can  not  be  put  on  the  fact  that  the  relief  of  any  symptom 
until  the  underlying  cause  has  been  removed  is  not  only  mislead- 
ing but  also  sometimes  definitely  harmful.  In  dealing  with  it 
it  is  best  to  follow  the  method  of  nature  in  the  spontaneous  re- 
coveries, that  is,  the  various  compensatory  and  re-educational 
measures.  , 

Summary.  To  summarize,  then,  there  is  or  may  be  postu- 
lated some  hereditary  or  acquired  weakness  in  the  field  of  emo- 
tional adaptation  plus  some  hereditary  or  acquired  weakness  of 
the  adaptive  functions  of  speech,  presumably  in  the  kinesthetic, 
auditory  or  visual  centers.  More  probably  in  the  first  two  than 
in  the  third. 

A  discussion  of  the  way  in  which  a  weakness  of  the  adaptive 
functions  of  speech  may  be  acquired  throws  some  light  on  the 
disease-symptom  and  its  avoidance. 

It  is  obvious  that  any  process  of  the  human  organism  which 
is  acquired  out  of  its  accustomed  time  or  sequence  is  a  process 
acquired  at  a  less  suitable  time  and  is  therefore  rarely  so  well 
attained.  This  is  true  of  speech  and  any  condition  or  accident 
which  interferes  with  its  acquisition  or  perfection  at  the  proper 
time  may  be  said  to  predispose  to  a  weak  speech  mechanism. 
Thus  the  interruption  or  delay  of  the  acquisition  of  walking  and 
the  other  fundamental  muscle  development  may  retard  the 
laying  down  of  the  "impulse  paths"  along  which  the  accessory 
muscle  impulses  are  presumed  to  travel.  An  interference  with 
the  use  of  the  left  hand  in  normally  left  handed  children  may 
have  the  same  effect.  Illness  or  shock  at  the  period  of  transition 
from  speech  as  a  meaningless  motor  output  into  speech  as  an 
expression  of  ideas  may  cause  a  similar  retardation. 


310  What  is  the  Problem  of  Stuttering  ? 

Treatment.  What,  then  is  the  rational  treatment  for  the 
relief  of  this  condition? 

The  methods  suitable  for  the  care  of  the  child  and  the  adult 
differ.  For  the  former  it  consists  mainly  in  adapting  the  home- 
school  conditions  to  his  needs  and  training  for  a  fuller  develop- 
ment of  the  mechanism  which  is  as  yet  in  a  period  of  active 
growth  and  therefore  more  capable  of  modification.  Also  a 
modified  analysis  of  the  psychic  mechanism  suited  to  the  in- 
telligence and  adaptability  of  the  child  and  education  along  the 
lines  which  will  modify  the  secondary  conditions  likely  to  arise 
from  prolonged  stuttering.  This  should  follow,  where  possible, 
study  and,  where  necessary,  reorganization  of  the  physical  and 
glandular  conditions  of  the  child. 

It  is  with  the  adult  that  we  wish  to  concern  ourselves  here. 

The  first  and  most  vital  thing  is  the  care  of  a  trained  neuro- 
psychiatrist,  who  should,  in  addition  to  the  most  exacting 
physical  examination,  make  a  thorough  study  of  the  behavior 
and  mental  life  of  the  individual,  his  adaptations  in  the  field  of 
sex  and  his  general  social  relations  and  output.  The  psycholo- 
gist can  be  of  value  only  if  a  neuro-psychiatrist  is  not  available 
and  then  only  in  so  far  as  he  may  have  made  himself  conversant 
not  only  with  the  general  principles  of  mental  and  emotional 
analysis  but  also  of  the  activities  of  the  glands  and  the  modern 
methods  of  determining  the  illnesses  of  the  internal  secretions 
and  the  many  organic  as  well  as  the  more  serious  mental  dis- 
orders of  which  these  patients  are  capable. 

The  neuro-psychiatrist  must  have  at  his  command  an  assist- 
ant who  parallels  in  the  scope  of  his  or  her  ability  the  Aides  now 
established  in  the  first-grade  institutions  for  the  mentally  ill. 
The  field,  however,  in  which  these  workers  must  be  trained 
differs  as  the  main  symptom  of  the  stutterer  differs  from  the 
main  symptom  of  the  other  mental  and  nervous  patients.  They 
are  most  easily  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  oral  teachers  for  the 
deaf  as  these  teachers  are  equipped  to  give  aid  in  such  allied 
conditions  as  lisping,  mal-position  of  the  active  articulatory 
organs,  etc.  They  have  learned  also,  in  their  dealing  with  the 
deaf,  the  value  of  patience  and  a  winning  personality.  Psycho- 
logists, and  teachers  of  physical  education  are  also  already 
partially  equipped. 

The  assistant  must  be  trained  to  study  and  analyze  the 
co-ordinational  activities  of  the  patient  and  in  the  re-education 
of  them  especially  utilize  the  crafts  which  stimulate  the  coarse 


Margaret  Gray  Blanton  and  Captain  Smiley  Blanton      311 

co-ordinations.  These  consist  chiefly  of  wood-work,  simple 
weaving,  clay  work,  copper  work,  gardening,  dyeing,  and  such 
others  as  may  be  available  and  which  may  carry  on  their  use- 
fulness after  the  period  of  re-education  is  past.  Crafts  requiring 
the  use  of  the  finer  movements,  such  as  hand  sewing,  raffia  work, 
embroidery,  etc,  are  contra-indicated  in  most  cases. 

While  it  is  desirable  and  essential  that  the  patient  have  some 
interest  other  than  his  own  emotional  evolution  especially  during 
the  period  of  analysis  and  study  the  primary  reason  for  the  use 
of  the  crafts  is  the  direct  education  of  the  fundamental  muscles 
.and  gradually  through  them,  of  the  accessory. 

Dr.  Smythe-Johnson  has  pointed  out  in  his  Yale  Laboratory 
tests,  that  proficiency  in  one  field  of  co-ordinated  activities  leads 
to  greater  skill  in  all.  A  fact  which  is  continually  demonstrated 
in  the  ease  with  which  a  skilled  craftsman  in  one  field  "transfers " 
his  ability  almost  intact  to  another  field. 

The  second  field  of  value  is  rhythmic  dancing  and  patting. 
This  may  be  done  both  to  music  and  to  count.  Drill,  forcing  an 
instant  muscular  obedience  to  spoken  orders,  is  also  of  great 
value.  These,  for  the  training  of  the  voluntary  as  well  as  for 
the  involuntary  co-ordinations. 

(3)  Swimming,  is  especially  adapted  to  the  re-education  of 
the  diaphragm  and  other  breathing  muscles,  and  for  poise  and 
rhythm. 

(4)  The  re-education  of  the  kinesthetic  and    the    auditor- 
motor  imagery  by  reading  aloud,  saying  certain  phrases  after  the 
Aide,  quick  response  to  questions,  etc.     It  can  not  be  too  strongly 
emphasized   that   there   should   not   be   any   direct   letter   and 
syllable  training.     This  will  at  once  appeal  to  the  reason  when  it 
is  realized  that  there  is  no  fault  with  the  articulating  organs  in 
the  condition  of  stuttering,  rather,  owing  to  the  condition,  there 
is  already  an  over  emphasis  and  consciousness  of  these  organs. 
Plays  and  games  which  include  speech  which  can  be  devised  in 
such  a  way  that  they  will  hold  the  interest  of  the  adult  and  at 
the  same  time  give  him  confidence  in  his  ability  to  speak  freely 
may  be  used,  but  this  end  can  best  be  accomplished  by  conversa- 
tion, undirected. 

The  Aides  must  also  by  their  attitude  assist  in  the  emotional 
re-education  of  the  patient.  They  should  have  as  much  informa- 
tion with  regard  to  the  patient's  special  troubles  as  can  be 
given  consistently  and  should  be  of  the  type  to  respect  the  tenets 
of  medical  ethics.  They  should  also  be  well  informed  of  the 


312  What  is  the  Problem  of  Stuttering  ? 

inadvisability  of  their  undertaking  to  attempt  any  phase  of  the 
emotional  re-education  except  when  directed  to  do  so  by  the 
physician  in  charge,  otherwise  confusion  results. 

History  taking.  A  most  important  phase  of  the  study  and 
treatment  of  any  disorder,  the  taking  of  a  complete  history,  has 
an  added  value  here,  as  the  reliable  literature  on  this  subject  is 
practically  negligible  and  the  student  must  therefore  depend  on 
his  case  histories  for  special  study.  It  is  well  to  have  a  very 
full  history  blank,  built  on  the  order  of  those  in  use  in  the  better 
institutions  for  the  treatment  of  mental  illnesses.  They  should 
cover  every  field  of  endeavor  which  may  seem  to  have  the 
slightest  relation.  The  study  of  this  trouble  may  be  said  to  have 
just  begun  and  leads  which  may  at  present  seem  rather  far  afield 
may  presently  prove  of  value.^ 

"Systems  of  cure,"  and  "methods  of  treatment"  must  be 
laid  aside,  and  each  case  studied  and  prescribed  for  separately. 
It  would  be  better  if  we  could  abolish  the  attitude  that  this  or 
that  person  is  "a  stutterer"  but  rather  that  "this  man  stutters 
or  that  man  stutters."  It  is  as  individual  as  is  the  person  on 
whom  it  has  fixed  itself. 

There  is  needed  badly  some  change  in  the  present  public 
attitude  toward  this  problem,  which  has  remained  one  of  the 
fields  of  endeavor  in  which  anyone  with  the  inclination  might 
undertake  to  work;  more  knowledge  as  to  just  what  this  symptom 
indicates  and,  indeed,  that  it  is  a  symptom  rather  than  a  disease 
entity  and  may  in  time  be  found  to  have  its  basis  in  a  number  of 
different  organic  or  functional  disturbances. 

A  more  serious  consideration  of  it  at  the  hands  of  the  medical 
profession  would  be  a  great  stepi  n  remedying  this  condition  which 
is  not  without  its  reproach  to  them,  in  that,  owing  to  the  in- 
difference of  the  men  correctly  trained  to  deal  with  this  disorder, 
the  victims  of  this  most  distressing  form  of  mental  suffering 
have  been  given  over  almost  bodily  to  quacks  and  charlatans, 
or,  what  is  almost  as  bad,  to  kindly  disposed  but  ignorant  people 
who  see  in  it  mainly  a  means  of  livelihood. 

It  becomes  more  and  more  evident  to  the  careful  student 
that  the  amount  of  disorder  in  the  motor  speech  field  and  the 
severity  of  the  neurosis  do  not  always  bear  a  direct  ratio  to  one 
another.  Obviously  a  neurosis  would  not  produce  as  severe  a 
disorder  in  a  person  of  relatively  strong  speech  mechanisms  as 
in  one  where  the  hereditary  or  acquired  conditions  of  the  mech- 
anism were  not  so  well  adapted  to  withstand  strain. 


Margaret  Gray  Blanton  and  Captain  Smiley  Blanton      313 

To  illustrate,  the  incipient  stutterer  may  have  a  condition 
bordering  on  a  neurosis  and  a  stutterer  "cured"  so  far  as  this 
symptom  is  concerned  may  still  suffer  from  a  depression  which 
will  lead  him  to  commit  suicide,  or  ideas  of  reference  or  of  per- 
secution which  may  lead  him  to  make  false  accusation  and  some- 
times even  commit  graver  crimes,  whereas  a  person  with  a  de- 
cided fault  in  the  speech  may  adapt  himself  very  nicely  to  the 
condition,  sublimate  his  activities  and  live  very  nearly  a  normal 
life. 

Of  course  stuttering,  which  brings  so  many  difficult  problems 
of  adjustment  must  be  relieved  if  possible  and  the  weak  mech- 
anism strengthened  in  order  that  the  vicious  circle  which  has 
been  established  may  be  broken.  But  no  treatment  which  has 
this,  only,  as  its  end  can  be  of  value.  The  theory  of  an  "ac- 
cidental" symptom  has  been  discarded  long  ago  and  in  its  place 
has  come  the  knowledge  that  the  only  time  in  which  it  is  justi- 
fiable to  remove  a  symptom  is  after  the  underlying  cause  of  the 
trouble  has  been  reached  and  remedied  or  proven  hopeless. 


ARE      THE      PRESENT      PSYCHOLOGICAL      SCALES 
RELIABLE  FOR  THE  EXAMINATION  OF  ADULTS? 

AN  ANALYTICAL  COMPARISON  OF  EXAMINATIONS  FOR 
CHILDREN  AND  FOR  ADULTS 

SIDNEY  L.   PRESSEY,    PH.  D.   AND  LUELLA  W.  COLE,  A.  B. 

THE    PSYCHOPATHIC    HOSPITAL,    BOSTON 

IN  a  previous  article,1  the  subject  of  irregularity  on  a  psycho- 
logical scale  as  a  means  of  distinguishing  deteriorated  from 
feebleminded  individuals  was  discussed.  In  that  paper  a 

new  method  of  figuring  "irregularity"  on  the  "Point 
Scale"  was  explained  and  norms  for  irregularity  for  groups  of 
feebleminded,  dementia  praecox  and  chronic  alcoholic  cases  pre- 
sented. The  value  of  each  test  in  the  scale  for  differentiating 
deterioration  from  primary  amentia  was  then  worked  out,  the 
five  tests  most  differential  combined  into  a  special  differential 
group  of  tests  and  norms  for  this  group  also  presented.  The 
results  appeared  of  considerable  value  for  practical  purposes.2 

The  present  paper  briefly  reports  work  of  largely  similar 
nature,  only  done  on  normal  children,  feebleminded  children  and 
feebleminded  adults.  The  study  of  these  three  groups  of  cases 
gives  rise  to  two  distinct,  but  related,  questions.  Do  the 
feebleminded  show  a  greater  irregularity — therefore  a  different 
make-up  of  examination — than  the  normal  person?  If  so,  what 
tests  and  mental  processes  are  most  affected?3  Second;  are  the 
present  standard  intelligence  tests  applicable  for  work  on  adults? 
Does  mere  maturity  change  the  make-up  of  an  examination 
given  by  a  mentally  defective  person?  If  so,  what  tests  and  men- 
tal processes  are  most  affected?  This  last  comparison  of  adults 

*A  New  Method  for  Determining  the  Reliability  of  a  Psychological  Examination. 
S.  L.  Pressey,  Boston  Psychopathic  Hospital  and  Luella  Cole,  Boston  Psychopathic  Hos- 
pital. 

2  In  that  paper  reference  was  made  to  the  difficulty  of  evaluating  such  findings,  due  to 
the  fact  that  so  little   is  known  as  to  the  results  of  psychological   examination  of  adults. 
All  well  known  psychological  scales  are  based  on  work  with  school  children  and  are  planned 
primarily  for  use  with  children.     But  in  practice  these  scales  are  given  quite  as  frequently 
to  adolescents  and  adults.     It  is  assumed  that  a  given  mental  age  has  essentially  the  same 
significance  whether  obtained  from  an  adult  or  a  child.     As  will  appear  from  the  following 
data,  such  an  assumption  is  not  wholly  justifiable. 

3  This  first  question  goes  back  in  the  last  analysis  to  the  old  problem  as  to  whether 
primary  amentia  is  merely  arrested  development  or  involves  mental  abnormalities  as  well. 

314 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  315 

with  children  should  measure  what  the  comparative  effects  of 
maturity  are  and  should  determine  whether  or  not  tests,  obtained 
from  school  children  are  valid  for  the  mental  measurement  of 
adults.  The  results  which  have  been  obtained  on  these  questions 
seem  of  decided  interest,  both  theoretically  and  practically. 

In  this  work  the  Point  Scale  was  used  throughout.  The 
method  of  figuring  irregularity  may  be  described  as  follows. 
The  basis  was  a  table4  giving  the  average  score  in  points  of  the 
normal  child  at  each  mental  age  and  for  each  test.  Thus,  the 
average  score  of  eleven  year  old  children  on  test  one  is  3.0;  on 
test  two,  3.8;  on  test  three,  2.8;  on  test  four  3.7,  etc.  If  a  given 
child,  testing  at  eleven  years,  scores  3,  4,  5,  and  5  on  these  first 
four  tests,  he  shows  variations  from  the  average,  or  irregularities, 
of  0.0,  0.2,  2.2  and  1.3;  and  the  sum  of  all  these  variations  on  all 
the  twenty  tests  will  be  the  total  irregularity.  In  the  case  just 
mentioned  the  irregularity  was  14.2.  Such  a  statement  of 
irregularity  is  simple  and  comprehensive  and  is  often,  as  shown 
in  the  paper  already  referred  to,  of  no  small  significance.  It 
should  be  worked  out,  the  writers  believe,  in  all  cases  and  re- 
corded along  with  the  mental  age  and  coefficient  as  part  of  the 
findings. 

This  paper  is  a  study  of  275  cases.  In  obtaining  data, 
results  from  normal  children  were  most  difficult  to  accumulate 
from  the  material  available  but  were  essential  as  a  basis  for  all 
the  further  work.  The  examinations  used  were  made  at  the 
Boston  Psychopathic  Hospital.  Normal  children  are  not  usually 
brought  here,  but  children  whose  fathers  have  developed  neuro- 
syphylis  are  frequently  brought  into  the  Out-Patient  Depart- 
ment for  a  Wasserman  test,  accompanied  by  the  routine  physical 
and  psychological  examinations.  If  the  Wasserman  reaction  is 
negative,  the  child  tests  at  normal  on  the  scale,  and  has  a  good 
school  history,  he  may  be  considered  as  normal.  Cases  are  also 
frequently  brought  in  to  the  Out-Patient  Department  for  minor 
delinquencies,  who  turn  out  to  be  average  enough  children  who 
chanced  to  be  caught  in  escapades  more  or  less  common  to  all 
children,  but  are  haled  into  the  Out-Patient  Department  by 
over-zealous  social  workers.  Some  children  thus  brought  in  are 
younger  brothers  or  sisters  of  some  child  who  has  been  in  a  reform 
school  but  who  have  themselves  shown  no  abnormalities.  In 
other  instances  there  is  no  suspicion  of  mental  defect,  and  the 

4Table  30,  p.  123  of  "A  Point  Scale  for  Measuring  Mental  Ability"  Yerkes  R.  M., 
Bridges  J.  W.  and  Hardwick  R.  S.  Warwick  and  York  1915. 


316  Present  Psychological  Scales 

psychological  examination  is  given  in  connection  with  the 
adoption  of  a  child  or  some  other  such  matter.  In  selecting 
these  cases  of  normal  children,  only  those  grading  within  a  year 
of  age,  above  or  below,  giving  a  good  school  history  and  having 
the  diagnosis  of  "no  piental  or  nervous  disease, "  were  used.  No 
individuals  brought  in  for  emotional  or  nervous  instability,  none 
with  any  physical  disease,  none  from  homes  where  no  English  was 
spoken,  were  taken  even  though  their  examinations  were  up  to 
age.  Fifty  cases  fulfilling  these  requirements  and  grading  at  the 
mental  ages  of  eight  to  twelve  inclusive,  were  found  in  the  Out- 
Patient  Department.  The  number  of  examinations  is,  of  course, 
too  small,  but  the  group  as  thus  selected  was  distinctly  homo- 
geneous and  the  averages  obtained  would  appear  to  be  of  fair 
reliability. 

Two  groups  of  feebleminded  cases  were  considered.  The 
distribution  by  mental  age  was  fairly  even  for  both  groups. 
110  of  the  cases  were  individuals  under  twenty  years  of  age; 
115  were  over  twenty,  chronologically:5  all  were  feebleminded. 
Two  thirds  of  the  primary  aments  were  cases  tested  at  the 
Waverley  School  for  the  Feebleminded  the  rest  were  persons 
so  diagnosed  at  the  Boston  Psychopathic  Hospital.  These  last 
cases  were  also  carefully  selected,  none  showing  nervous  or  mental 
disorder  in  addition  to  their  primary  amentia  being  included,  or 
any  whose  scoring  would  be  influenced  by  an  inadequate  knowl- 
edge of  English. 

The  total  irregularities  of  all  these  275  cases  were  figured 
first  by  the  method  described  above.  The  results  are  shown  on 
Table  I. 

6  It  may  seem  odd  that  feeble-minded  adults  were  studied.  But  the  crux  of  the  problem 
is  right  here.  Positive  action  is  taken  upon  the  results  of  the  psychological  examination 
only  when  the  case  is  judged  feebleminded;  otherwise  the  findings  of  the  psychological  tests 
are,  for  purposes  of  disposition,  negative.  And  it  is  the  adult  who  has  what  is  usually 
called  a  child's  mind  to  whom  these  children's  tests  should  be  most  applicable.  That  the 
scales  are  only  roughly  satisfactory  with  such  case  would  imply  that  they  were  even  less 
satisfactory  in  work  with  normal  or  deteriorated  individuals  of  adult  years.  A  direct  study 
of  the  examinations  of  normal  adults  was  impossible  as  no  data  was  available  and  the 
findings,  supposing  such  data  to  be  at  hand,  would  have  been  less  crucial.  First  and  fore- 
most, the  tests  are  used  for  diagnosing  feeblemindedness  and  it  is  in  proportion  to  their  re- 
liability for  that  work  that  they  should  be  pr'marily  judged. 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  317 

TABLE  I 

TOTAL  IRREGULARITY  (IN  POINTS) 

Mental  Normal  Children         Feeble-Minded  Feeble-minded 

Age              (50  cases)               under  twenty  over  twenty 

(110  cases)  (115  cases) 

Av.  m.  v.  No.           Av.   m.  v.     No.  Av.  m.  v.     No. 

8  14.6  ±1.8  (11)          15.6  ±1.4    (24)  17.7  ±1.5    (24) 

9  16.8  ±1.4  (10)          16.5   ±1.6    (30)  18.2  ±1.9    (29) 

10  15.6  ±2.5  (6)            16.8  ±1.5    (20)  17.8  ±1.9    (16) 

11  15.7  ±2.2  (10)          15.7  ±1.5    (20)  17.8  ±1.9    (25) 

12  14.4  ±1.5  (13)          15.0  ±2.0    (16)  17.6  ±1.5    (21) 


15.6  ±1.9  (50)          15.9  ±1.6  (110)  17.8  ±1.7  (115) 

The  figures  in  parenthesis  give  the  number  of  cases  at  each  mental  age. 
The  average  mean  variation  is  the  average  of  the  mean  variations  at  the  differ- 
ent mental  ages,  not  the  mean  variation  of  the  averages. 

It  will  be  seen,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  average  irregulari- 
ties for  each  of  the  three  groups  are  surprisingly  constant  at  the 
different  mental  ages.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  two  feeble- 
minded groups,  so  that  it  seems  warranted  to  take  sixteen  as  a 
general  average  for  the  feebleminded  under  twenty  and  eighteen 
for  those  over  twenty.  The  figures  for  the  normal  children  are 
less  constant  from  one  mental  age  to  another,  but  this  is  probably 
due  to  the  small  number  of  cases.  A  norm  of  sixteen  for  the 
mental  ages  of  eight  to  twelve  would  seem  to  be  indicated. 

In  the  second  place,  it  would  appear  that  irregularity  on 
the  Point  Scale  is  not  indicative  of  mental  defect.  Feeble 
minded  cases  under  twenty,  average  only  .3  more  irregularity 
than  the  normal  children.  This  is  of  no  small  interest.  It  is 
frequently  stated  that  a  greater  irregularity  is  indicative  of  men- 
tal defect.  On  the  Point  Scale,  at  least,  this  is  not  true,  if  the 
feebleminded  cases  are  young.  The  greater  irregularity  found 
by  previous  writers  may  be  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  they  used 
the  Binet  Scale  with  its  heterogeneous  assemblage  of  tests.  The 
smaller  differential  irregularity  on  the  Point  Scale  might  then 
be  considered  evidence  that  the  Point  Scale  was  more  nearly  a 
measure  of  intelligence,  being  freer  of  tests  of  information  or 
other  elements  not  closely  associated  with  general  intelligence  by 
itself. 

The  definitely  greater  irregularity  of  the  adult  cases  should 
be  noted,  however.  It  suggests  that  the  results  of  other  workers 
may  be  due  in  part  to  an  inclusion  in  their  averages  for  the  pri- 
mary aments,  of  cases  too  far  removed  in  chronological  age 


318.  Present  Psychological  Scales 

from  normal  children  to  make  the  groups  strictly  comparable. 
The  definite  difference  in  irregularity  between  child  and  adult 
feebleminded  persons  calls  at  once  for  an  analysis  of  the  ex- 
aminations in  these  two  groups  to  discover  what  is  causing  the 
difference6 

Such  an  analysis  was  made  by  finding  the  average  score  of 
each  group  of  the  feebleminded  on  each  test  and  comparing 
the  results  with  the  average  performance,  on  each  test,  of  the 
school  children  on  whom  the  mental  age  norms  for  the  scale  are 
based.  The  figures  are  given  as  per  cents  of  the  score  of  the 
normal  children  of  the  same  mental  age  achieved  by  each  of  the 
mentally  defective  groups.  Table  II  gives  the  data  which  for 
greater  clearness  has  also  been  graphed  (Plate  I).  In  this 

TABLE  II 

Test  123456789     10 

Cases  over  20  101  105  114     93  100     66  117     85     85  103 

Cases  under  20  102  103  115     89  100     65  115  100  100     94 

Test  11     12     13     14     15     16     17     18     19     20 

Cases  over  20  102  101     79     74  134     56     95  119  143  101 

Cases  under  20  122  117     97     66  111  105     89     65     85     93 

First  line:  tests  of  the  Point  Scale,  in  order.  Second  and  third  lines; 
percent,  of  score  made  on  each  test  by  normal  children,  shown  by  feeble- 
minded individuals  (a)  under  20,  and  (b)  over  20. 

graph  the  heavy  mid-line,  at  100  per  cent,  represents  the  per- 
formance of  the  normal  child  and  the  dotted  and  plain  lines  the 
variations  from  that  norm,  in  per  cent,  of  the  twTo  groups  of 
feeble-minded  cases.  These  last  lines  give  what  might  be  called 
a  "profile"  of  mental  defect  and  of  maturity  as  compared  with 
normality.  Or  to  put  it  another  way,  they  give  a  graphic  repre- 
sentation of  irregularity.  On  the  graph,  double  lines  have  been 
drawn  at  the  points  marking  fifteen  per  cent  above  and  below 

6 The  norms  for  the  adult  feebleminded  should  supersede  those  given  in  the  previous 
paper;  as  mentioned  in  that  paper  the  norms  were  at  fault  in  including  cases  of  all  chrono- 
logical ages  in  one  group.  This  was  then  necessary  as  sufficient  data  for  treating  the  two 
groups,  children  and  adults,  separately  had  not  been  accumulated.  Comparison  will  show 
that  these  new  norms,  for  adults  only,  are  more  satisfactory  for  purposes  of  differentiating 
primary  amentia  from  deterioration.  The  norms  for  the  differential  group  now  run  3.6, 
5.0,  5.5,  5.5,  and  5.4;  the  averages  are  more  constant  from  one  mental  age  to  another  and 
the  scatter  of  individual  cases  around  the  average  is  less.  This  differential  group,  with  the 
norms  here  given  seems  likely  to  prove  of  decided  practical  interest. 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole 


319 


normal.     Variations  beyond  these  limits  may  surely  be  con- 
sidered significant. 

"Profile"  of  the  Irregularity  shown  by  (a)  Adolescent  and  (6)  Adult  Feeble- 
minded Cases  on  the  Point  Scale. 

efo  '  7~e  *  *" at 

.Zn/      A     3      f     ?     t      f      i     9     10     it     u    iy     li    iy    it     if    fl     19    un* 


IW 

UO 
110 

100 
90 

to 

TO 


Adult 


a 


^ 


4 


* 


7\ 


\HO 
»30 

I/O 
100 

50 

20 
70 
60 


Heavy  line  (100%)  indicates  score  of  normal  children  on  each  test. 
Graph  shows  variations  from  this,  in  percents.  Double  lines  mark  15% 
variations,  above  and  below  the  normal  line. 

(a)  This  variation  due  to  a  change  on  test  six,  made  after  the  norms  were 
established.  The  variation  is  thus  of  no  significance. 

If  test  six  is  excluded  (see  note,  Graph  I)  the  only  significant 
variations  occur  on  tests  11,  12,  13,  14,  15,  16,  18,  19.  The 
younger  group  of  the  feebleminded  show  only  four  such  irregu- 
larities. The  showing  is  definitely  better  on  test  11,  (resisting 
suggestion)  and  test  12  (drawing  square  and  diamond)  It  is 
poorer  on  test  14  (writing  a  sentence  containing  Boston,  money 
and  river)  and  test  18  (reconstructing  dissected  sentences). 
These  results  may  be  taken  as  further  evidence  that  the  feeble- 
minded do  relatively  well  with  tests  requiring  merely  sensori- 
motor  adjustments,  but  very  poorly  with  work  involving  idea- 
tion. The  poor  showing  on  these  last  mentioned  tests  may, 
however,  be  correlated  more  directly  with  the  retardation  in, 
and  early  elimination  from,  school,  symptomatic  of  primary 
amentia.7 

TAn  attempt  was  made  to  develop  a  special  group  of  tests  for  distinguishing  primary 
amentia  (using  tests  11,  12,  14  and  18)  similar  to  the  differential  group  for  distinguishing 
deterioration,  described  in  a  previous  article.  See  note  1.  But  the  result  was  not  sufficient- 
ly satisfactory  to  merit  report  here. 


320  Present  Psychological  Scales 

The  adults  show  an  irregularity  of  a  definitely  different 
make-up.  They  do  poorly  on  test  13  (free  association)  test  14, 
(writing  the  sentence  containing  Boston,  money  and  river)  and 
on  test  16  (drawing  two  geometrical  figures  from  memory). 
They  do  surprisingly  well  on  tests  15  (comprehension  of  practical 
questions)  and  19  (definition  of  abstract  terms).  A  natural 
interpretation  is  that 'these  adult  defectives  are  especially  charac- 
tized  by  a  paucity  of  ideation,  test  13  being  free  association,  lack 
of  ingenuity  (test  14)  and  a  poor  capacity  for  learning  (test  16). 
And  the  experience,  which  comes  with  greater  age,  has  brought 
the  capacity  for  understanding  practical  questions  of  a  simple 
sort  (test  15)  and  knowledge  of  abstract  ideas  of  a  social  signi- 
ficance, (test  19),  somewhat  greater  than  has  the  average  child 
of  the  same  "mental  age." 

Whether  such  interpretations  be  accepted  or  not,  the  fact 
remains  that  adolescent,  and  particularly  adult  feebleminded 
persons  give  examinations  on  the  psychological  scale  which  are 
essentially  different  from  the  examinations  given  by  normal 
children  by  which  the  results  are  judged. 


The  bearing  of  these  results  upon  the  general  problem  of 
mental  measurements  of  adults  is  obvious.  It  had  been  cus- 
tomary, in  work  with  adults,  to  use  one  of  the  standard  psycho- 
logical scales.  The  total  score,  or  with  the  Binet  scales  the  total 
number  of  passes,  was  then  found  and  the  result  read  as  a  "  mental 
age."  If  the  mental  age  was  ten,  the  individual  was  supposed 
to  have  the  intelligence  of  a  ten-year  old  child.  The  graph  above 
makes  it  clear  that  such  an  assumption  is  true  only  in  a  very  rough 
way.  The  examination  which  has  given  the  adult  this  mental 
age  of  ten  is  strikingly  different,  in  important  features  from  the 
typical  child's  examination,  which  gave  65  points,  or  48  passes 
on  the  Stanford  scales,  its  significance  as  an  indication  of  a  ten 
year  mentality.  Such  an  interpretation,  in  dealing  with  feeble- 
minded children  or  adolescents  is  not  altogether  sound  theoreti- 
cally. In  dealing  with  adults,  the  connotation  which  this  form 
of  statement  gives,  is  a  distinctly  false  one, — the  impression  is 
altogether  wrong. 

8  A  comparison  of  these  "profiles"  with  a  similar  graph  for  dementia  praecox  and  chronic 
alcoholic  patients  is  of  decided  interest.  Feebleminded,  chronic  alcoholic  and  dementia 
praecox  patients  have,  each  their  own  profiles  which  mark  off  the  groups  with  some  definite- 
ness  from  every  other  group.  See  Pressey  S.  L.  Distinctive  Features  in  the  Psychological 
Examination  of  Dementia  Praecox  and  Chronic  Alcoholic  Patients.  Journal  of  Abnormal 
Psychology,  June  1917. 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W .  Cole  321 

A  much  better  statement  for  the  findings  of  a  psychological 
examination  is  the  coefficient  of  intelligence  or  the  index  quotient. 
The  adult  giving  a  mental  age  of  ten,  has  a  coefficient  of  .74  on 
the  Point  Scale  or  of  .57  on  the  Stanford.  That  is,  he  obtains 
74%  or  57%  of  the  score  that  he  should  earn  if  he  were  of  average 
intelligence.  His  score  happens  to  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  ten 
year  old  child,  but  the  two  examinations  are  not  the  same,  and 
with  the  findings  stated  as  a  coefficient,  there  is  no  pretension 
that  they  are. 

The  irregularities  exhibited  on  the  psychological  scale  mean 
more  than  that  the  commonly  used  statement  for  the  findings 
on  the  scale  is  unsatisfactory,  however.  They  mean  that  these 
scales  are  inadequate  for  work  with  adult  individuals.  A  change 
in  mental  make-up  with  maturity  is  doubtless  one  cause,  but 
there  are  other  factors.  The  failure  of  the  subnormal  adult  to 
reproduce  from  memory  the  Binet  figures  is  not  due,  primarily,  to 
his  mental  defect.  The  problem  presented  is  so  utterly  foreign 
to  his  experience  that  he  does  not  know  what  to  make  of  it,  how 
to  "take  hold"  of  it.  It  is  wholly  different  from  the  varieties 
of  problem  by  which,  in  his  environment,  his  intelligence  is  tested 
and  his  failure  here  has  very  little  significance.  A  school  child 
finds  such  a  task  of  memory  not  unnatural.  For  an  adult  the 
test  is  next  to  valueless.9 

The  writers  feel  that  other  tests  of  the  scale  have,  for  dealing 
with  adults,  the  same  inapplicability.  Any  one  experienced  in 
clinical  work  must  have  felt  acutely,  at  times,  the  inadequacy 
and  the  irrelevancy  for  such  purposes  of  much  of  this  material. 
A  day  laborer,  fairly  intelligent  in  his  reaction  to  his  own  limited 
environment,  is  bewildered  and  irritated  by  many  of  the  problems 
set  him.  When  he  is  asked  what  he  would  do  if  he  had  broken 
something  belonging  to  another,  (part  of  the  Binet  "compre- 
hension of  questions"  test)  or  requested  to  define  justice,  the 
problem  seems  to  him  not  unnatural  as  a  test  of  his  judgment 
and  moral  sense.  And,  as  the  graph  shows,  he  does  fairly  well 
on  these  questions.  But  when  asked  to  give  disconnected  words  for 
three  minutes,  to  draw  designs  from  memory  or  to  make  up  a 
sentence  containing  Boston,  money  and  river,  he  does  poorly. 
The  reason  is  not  so  much  lack  of  intelligence  as  unfamiliarity 
and  awkwardness  with  the  type  of  problem. 

But,  to  whatever  causes  we  assign  these  irregularities;  the 

'That  is,  as  a  test  of  intelligence.     In  working  with  cases  of  mental  disease  it  gives 
results  of  great  interest.     See  notes  1  and  8. 


322  Present  Psychological  Scales 

conclusion  is  obvious.  The  standard  intelligence  scales  have 
been  developed  primarily  for  use  with  school  children  and  are 
based  upon  work  with  them.  When  used  upon  adults,  even  when 
the  adults  are  low  mentally,  the  results  must  be  considered  much 
less  exact  and  the  significance  of  the  total  score  with  regard  to  the 
relative  development  of  the  various  abilities  largely  different. 
The  measurement  of  the  intelligence  of  adults  is  a  problem  al- 
together different  from  the  measurement  of  the  mentality  of 
children.  We  need  special  methods  and,  to  a  large  extent, 
special  tests  for  this  problem. 

The  standard  scales  have  been  used  in  work  with  adults 
because  they  made  a  contribution  to  the  study  of  a  case  not  ob- 
tainable elsewhere.  If  used  with  discrimination  and  judgment 
they  are  of  decided  value  in  dealing  with  such  cases.  They  will 
continue  to  be  of  service  in  this  work.  But  in  using  them  for 
these  purposes,  it  must  be  constantly  remembered  that  they  are 
being  used  in  a  way  for  which  they  were  not  primarily  intended 
and  in  a  type  of  work  for  which  they  are  only  roughly  applicable. 
A  group  of  tests  originally  developed  for  use  with  adults  should 
give  results  of  much  greater  definiteness  and  value.  In  general, 
adults  may  be  thought  of  as  grading  somewhat  too  low  on  the 
present  psychological  scales  because  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of 
many  of  the  tests  for  such  work. 

SUMMARY 

The  paper  may  be  briefly  summarized.  It  reports  the  study 
of  the  psychological  examinations  given  by  50  normal  children, 
110  feebleminded  children,  and  115  adults  of  feebleminded  grade, 
all  grading  on  the  scale  between  the  ages  of  eight  and  twelve. 
The  major  purpose  of  the  paper  was  to  determine  the  applica- 
bility of  the  present  psychological  scales  to  work  with  adult 
individuals.  In  connection  with  this  a  minor  study  was  made; — 
a  comparison  of  normal  and  feebleminded  children  to  obtain 
some  evidence  as  to  the  distinctive  features  of  the  defective 
mentality.  The  conclusions  reached  were  as  follows: 

1.  Individuals   over   twenty   show    a   definitely    greater 
irregularity  on  a  psychological  scale  than  do  normal  or  feeble- 
minded children.     Feebleminded  children  are  not  distinguished 
from  normal  children  by  greater  irregularity. 

2.  The  feebleminded  show  an  examination  of  a  make-up 
different  from  that  given  by  normal  children.     In  general,  the 


Sidney  L.  Pressey  and  Luella  W.  Cole  323 

mentally  defective  show  a  better  sensori-motor  ability  than 
normal  children  of  the  same  mental  age,  but  a  smaller  number 
of  ideas  and  a  poorer  ability  for  their  re-combination  and  use  in  a 
new  situation. 

3.  Adult  individuals  again  give  a  result  distinctively 
different.  The  strikingly  different  make-up  of  the  examination 
given  by  the  adult  individual  is  used  as  an  argument,  (a)  for  the 
use  of  the  "intelligence  quotient"  or  "coefficient  of  intelligence" 
as  a  form  of  expression  for  the  results  of  a  psychological  examina- 
tion and  (6)  for  the  development  of  methods  and  tests  especially 
adapted  for  use  with  adults. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ANALYSIS  AND  RE-EDUCATION 
WITH  CASE  STUDIES 

MARGARET   J.    HAMILTON 

IN  a  former  article1  discussing  the  principles  underlying  my 
work,  as  these  principles  were  demonstrated  in  the  psy- 
chological clinic  of  the  Southern  California  Association  of 

Applied  Psychology,  the  position  was  taken  that  the  con- 
trol of  the  emotional  life  is  fundamental  to  securing  adequate  and 
healthy  functioning  of  both  the  physiological  and  the  intellectual 
processes.  Emotional  repression,  conflict,  waste,  and  starvation 
are  asserted  to  be  the  primary  causal  conditions  of  a  very  much 
wider  range  of  specific  pathological  disabilities,  both  physical  and 
mental,  than  has  heretofore  been  recognized.  By  the  methods  of 
psychological  analysis  and  re-education  used,  these  emotional 
conditions  can  be  discovered  and  effectively  dealt  with,  so  that 
the  pathological  symptoms  cease  and  the  individual  returns  to 
normal  conditions  of  physical  and  mental  health. 

It  was  further  held  that  the  presence  of  specific  emotional 
biases  and  inhibitions  is  a  very  large  factor  in  the  production  of 
intellectual  mediocrity  and  failure,  in  mis-direction  of  well-trained 
logical  processes  into  destructive  and  self -contradictory  programs 
of  conduct,  and  in  the  failure  of  moral  ideals  to  function  in  control- 
ling the  adjustment  process.  Emotional  conditions,  whether  con- 
scious or  unconscious,  may  serve  to  inhibit  the  proper  growth 
and  effective  use  of  intelligence,  or  may  deflect  its  activities  into 
undesirable  channels.  The  discovery  and  removal  of  these  emo- 
tional inhibitions  and  biases  is  thus  essential  to  the  best  success 
of  educational  procedure  on  both  its  intellectual  and  moral  sides. 

Indeed,  on  the  side  of  the  re-educative  procedure,  the  moral 
reconstruction  of  the  individual  is  often  the  chief  task  of  the  an- 
alyst. It  should  be  noted  that  I  use  the  term  "  moral "  in  its  wid- 
est and  deepest  sense,  meaning  thereby  that  healthful  unity  of  the 
competing  instincts  and  impulses,  that  adjustment  of  the  individ- 
ual to  his  social  environment,  that  harmony  of  his  interests  with 
one  another,  that  robust  and  straightforward  honest  dealing  with 

*F.  E.  Owen,   The  Psychological  Clinic  of  the  Southern  California  Association  of  Applied 
Psychology,  Jour.  Abn.  Psych.,  October,  1917. 

324 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  325 

the  facts  of  both  the  internal  and  external  life,  which  make  pos- 
sible the  resolution  of  the  harmful  conflicts  and  repressions,  and 
free  the  mind  for  its  most  healthful  and  efficient  functioning  in- 
tellectually. 

Furthermore,  it  should  be  noted  that  the  term  "psychologi- 
cal analysis"  is  used  instead  of  "psychoanalysis."  The  latter 
term  has  come  through  use  to  designate  the  methods,  technique, 
and  theories  peculiar  to  the  Freudian  school  and  its  various  ram- 
ifications. Since  no  use  is  made  of  the  Freudian  technique,  nor 
of  the  specifically  Freudian  concepts,  but  since  the  mental  factors 
or  elements  which  operate  to  determine  the  individual 's  reactions 
and  contribute  to  his  maladjustments  are  brought  to  light  by 
careful  and  detailed  analysis  of  both  the  conscious  and  the  uncon- 
scious mental  life,  I  have  called  this  kind  of  work  "psychological 
analysis"  to  avoid  any  possible  confusion  with  the  technique  and 
doctrines  of  the  Freudian  school.  Furthermore,  while  psycholog- 
ical analysis  lends  itself  to  the  discovery  of  the  mental  factors  in- 
volved in  the  production  of  pathological  symptoms  of  both  mind 
and  body,  the  term  covers  a  much  wider  range  of  operations.  By 
psychological  analysis  we  uncover  the  motivation,  ideational  and 
emotional,  which  is  present  to  produce  reactions  that  have  no 
pathological  symptoms  accompanying  them  or  resulting  from 
them,  but  which  may  be  interfering  with  the  most  successful  ad- 
justment of  the  individual  in  his  reactions  to  his  particular  en- 
vironment, and  which  are  therefore  causing  him  to  fail  to  meet  his 
individual  problems  upon  the  plane  of  efficiency  which  should  be 
normal  to  his  native  capacity.  Hence,  "psychological  analysis"  is 
an  analysis  of  conduct  with  a  view  to  discovering  the  mental  ele- 
ments involved  in  producing  that  conduct.  In  such  an  analysis, 
not  only  must  the  ideational  and  emotional  life  most  directly 
concerned  be  brought  to  light,  but  there  must  be  uncovered  the 
deeper-lying  often  unconsciously  functioning,  attitudes  and 
trends,  the  more  distant  currents  of  feeling  and  systems  of  ideas 
which  are  the  back-lying  causes  of  those  forms  of  thought  and 
feeling  that  are  more  overtly  in  consciousness,  or  are  nearest  in 
time  to  the  conduct  that  is  being  analyzed. 

Furthermore,  analysis  is  made  of  those  factors  in  the  mental 
life  that  are  productive  of  the  most  successful  and  satisfactory 
adjustments,  that  are  responsible  for  the  freest  and  most  con- 
structive functioning  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  that  tend  to  promote  the  best  health,  physical 
and  mental. 


326  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

The  person  who  is  being  dealt  with  is  shown,  as  rapidly  as  he 
is  willing  and  able  to  face  his  own  mental  life,  the  ideas,  feelings, 
and  general  attitudes  of  mind  that  are  interfering  with  his  on- 
going, and  a  program  of  thought  and  action  to  correct  these  is 
mapped  out  for  him  to  follow  in  his  daily  problems  of  adjustment. 
This  program  of  thought,  feeling,  and  action,  is  based  upon  the 
results  of  the  analysis  of  the  individual  case,  and  upon  the  results 
of  the  knowledge,  gained  through  analysis,  of  the  mental  factors 
that  have  been  found  to  be  most  successful  in  bringing  to  pass 
that  unity  of  mind,  and  that  healthful  reaction  to  environment, 
that  are  necessary  to  the  best  on-going  of  the  individual.  This 
process  of  re-education  goes  hand  in  hand,  step  by  step,  with  the 
process  of  analysis,  the  progress  being  no  greater  than  the  in- 
dividual is  able  to  make,  for,  as  I  have  said,  only  as  much  analysis 
is  done  as  he  is  able  and  willing  at  that  time  to  face,  and  such  a 
program  for  meeting  and  dealing  with  what  is  in  his  own  mental 
life  and  for  facing  his  daily  problems  is  provided  him  as  he  is  at 
that  time  able  to  undertake.  In  all  this  work  the  individual  may 
be  said  to  build  a  new  character  through  the  conscious  knowledge 
of  the  factors  which  were  his  former  undoing  and  the  conscious 
endeavor  from  day  to  day  to  change  his  ways  of  thinking  and  feel- 
ing through  sincere  and  earnest  efforts  to  follow  the  program  that 
is  outlined  for  him.  In  this  he  is  successful  in  so  far  as  the  in- 
hibitions that  stood  in  the  way  of  acquiring  these  new  mental 
habits  are  removed,  and  in  so  far  as  he  puts  up  no  resistance  to  the 
acceptance  and  practicing  of  the  new  way  of  living.  And  as  he 
makes  effort  from  day  to  day,  he  acquires  confidence  and  courage 
together  with  command  of  himself  in  proportion  to  his  growth  in 
knowledge  and  experience. 

The  process  by  which  the  causes  of  the  maladjustments  are 
corrected  is  thus,  in  a  very  deep  and  significant  sense,  an  educa- 
tive process.  People  come  to  the  analyst  to  be  taught:  to  learn 
why  they  are  as  they  are,  why  they  have  reacted  to  life  as  they 
have,  what  it  is  in  them  that  has  brought  them  to  their  failure  or 
to  their  pathological  condition,  and  how  they  may  so  reconstruct 
their  mental  lives  at  the  very  sources  of  motivation  that  they  may 
come  to  react  differently  so  as  to  correct  the  causes  and  escape 
from  their  maladjustments.  This  sort  of  learning  must  be  dis- 
criminated from  the  superficial,  outward,  objective  acquirement 
of  mere  intellectual  information.  It  is  the  sort  of  learning  that 
involves  such  a  depth  and  reality  of  understanding  as  brings  to 
pass  the  building-in  of  different  motives,  the  constant  practical 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  327 

acceptance  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  mental  structure  of  the 
new  program  of  thought,  the  new  attitudes  of  mind,  both  idea- 
tional  and  emotional.  The  knowledge  and  understanding  that 
the  individual  gains  must  be  dynamic,  not  static.  It  is  therefore, 
proper,  to  speak  of  the  individual  who  comes  to  seek  help  through 
psychological  analysis  and  re-education  as  a  student,  since  this  is 
the  attitude  that  he  must  and  does  take,  if  there  is  to  be  accom- 
plished for  him  any  lasting  and  genuine  benefit. 

In  making  the  analysis,  there  must  always  be  concrete  con- 
tact with  the  student's  daily  adjustments  where  he  is  meeting  his 
strains  and  tensions  and  suffering  his  defeats.  This  makes  pos- 
sible tHe  furnishing  of  a  program  of  procedure  that  will  tend  to 
relieve  the  repressions  and  supply  satisfactory  outlets  so  that 
the  emotional  adjustments  may  be  made.  It  is  in  the  reactions 
to  his  daily  experiences  that  the  individual  reveals  what  the  ideas 
and  attitudes  and  emotional  trends  and  repressions  are  that  are 
the  sources  of  his  difficulties,  and  as  these  come  to  light,  analysis 
is  also  made  of  the  past  experiences,  the  repressed,  buried,  or  for- 
gotten memories  and  processes,  that  may  be  functioning  to  pro- 
duce his  present  maladjustments.  By  studying  his  reactions 
both  to  memory  material  and  to  his  daily  affairs,  both  as  these 
reactions  are  now  taking  place  and  as  they  have  taken  place  in 
the  past,  it  is  possible  to  make  clear  to  him  the  emotional  atti- 
tudes and  the  ideas  out  of  which  his  reactions  come.  The  stud- 
ent, thus  enabled  to  understand  himself,  is  better  able  to  co-oper- 
ate with  the  analyst  in  the  re-educative  process ;  for  in  re-educa- 
tion it  is  necessary  to  build  into  the  mind  of  the  student  new  ways 
of  thinking  and  feeling  in  the  place  of  those  that  have  brought 
about  the  difficulties  from  which  he  may  be  suffering.  In  order 
that  he  may  be  willing  and  ready  to  accept  and  to  put  into  prac- 
tice new  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling,  he  must  be  able  to  see  the 
necessity  for  the  change,  and  his  understanding  comes  about 
through  his  being  able  to  see  clearly  the  relationship  between  his 
present  mental  and  physical  symptoms,  his  failures  in  adjustment 
and  the  life  of  ideas  and  feeling  that  causes  them.  He  is  thus  put 
into  conscious  control  of  his  own  mental  life,  and  is  given  an  op- 
portunity to  follow  entirely  different  programs  of  thought  and 
action.  He  literally  "changes  his  mind ",  but  he  does  so  with  the 
full  knowledge  of  its  necessity,  and  is  willing  to  do  it  because  he 
sees  what  the  "old  mind"  has  brought  him,  and  what  the  "new 
mind"  will  bring  him  if  he  will  but  work  sincerely  to  make  the 
necessary  modifications. 


328  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

The  following  sketches  of  the  analysis  and  re-education  of 
two  persons  who  exhibited  epileptic  symptoms,  and  of  one  who 
had  developed  serious  amnesia,  will  contribute  to  the  further 
understanding  of  the  way  in  which  the  emotional  life  not  only 
brings  to  pass  pathological  conditions,  but  also  interferes  with  the 
most  efficient  functioning  of  the  intellectual  processes.  From  a 
careful  study  of  Case  1  it  will  be  seen  that  correction  came  about 
primarily  through  the  re-education  of  the  moral  life,  as  here  was 
located  the  under-lying  cause  of  her  difficulties. 

Of  necessity,  only  the  barest  outlines  of  the  work  done  on 
these  cases  can  be  given,  for  the  mass  of  detailed  analysis,  and  the 
hours  of  conversation  needed  in  order  to  carry  on  the  work  of  re- 
education, would  fill  volumes.  Moreover,  this  material  would 
have  full  meaning  only  to  the  one  actually  engaged  at  the  time  in 
meeting  the  reactions  of  the  students  in  both  thought  and  feeling, 
as  the  work  was  done  and  the  intricate  details  dealt  with.  The 
attempt  has  been  made,  therefore,  to  condense  the  many  hours  of 
detailed  and  painstaking  work  so  as  to  give  a  perspective  of  the 
general  trend,  and  an  insight  into  the  principles  involved . 

Case  1.  This  student  is  a  young  woman  of  twenty -three,  a 
college  graduate.  When  she  came  to  our  Psychological  Clinic  for 
consultation  she  was  engaged  in  trying  to  do  graduate  work. 

Up  to  the  age  of  fourteen  she  seems  to  have  lived  a  normal 
life  in  every  way,  being  well,  happy,  vigorous,  full  of  initiative, 
exuberant,  expressive.  No  record  can  be  found  that  she  showed 
any  tendency  to  nervous  twitching  or  lack  of  muscular  control. 
At  about  the  age  of  fourteen  she  began  to  have  muscular  spasms 
in  which  she  would  completely  lose  consciousness  for  a  few  min- 
utes, at  most,  and  there  was  accompanying  frothing  at  the  mouth 
with  stertorious  breathing  during  the  coma.  These  attacks  in- 
creased in  violence  and  in  frequency  as  she  grew  older.  There 
was  also  an  increase  in  the  languor  and  the  depletion  that  would 
follow  them.  When  she  came  to  the  clinic  she  had  been  having 
the  attacks  two  or  three  times  a  week  for  some  time,  although 
there  had  been  periods  when  she  had  not  had  them  so  frequently, 
the  attacks  coming  only  once  or  twice  per  month. 

Her  difficulty  had  always  been  diagnosed  as  epilepsy.  On 
her  first  visit  to  the  clinic  she  was  asked  what  was  the  cause  of  her 
coming  to  us  for  help,  and  her  response  was:  "I  am  filled  with 
fear  all  the  time — fear  that  I  shall  fall  down  and  become  uncon- 
scious in  my  classes  or  on  the  street. "  When  asked  if  this  had 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  329 

ever  happened,  she  replied  that  it  had  not,  that  the  attacks  so  far 
had  always  occurred  indoors  and  mostly  at  home,  but  that  they 
were  coming  more  often  and  that  she  was  afraid  that  she  would  get 
so  that  she  would  have  no  control  at  all.  This  fear  of  losing  all  con- 
trol will  be  seen  to  be  one  of  the  important  factors  in  aggravating 
her  symptoms  and  controlling  her  conduct,  as  it  led  to  great  re- 
pression. The  girl  showed  great  reluctance  and  diffidence  about 
talking  of  her  malady,  needing  much  encouragement  to  speak  of 
of  it  at  all.  On  her  second  visit  to  the  clinic  she  was  encouraged 
to  go  into  a  little  detail  concerning  the  attacks  and  what  she  had 
been  doing  to  correct  them.  She  said  that  the  trouble  had  al- 
ways been  diagnosed  as  epilepsy,  and  that  among  other  remedial 
measures  prescribed,  she  had  been  put  upon  a  strict  diet  a  number 
of  times.  All  these  things,  however,  had  produced  no  apparent 
effect.  It  was  noted,  at  this  point,  that  she  showed  great  repres- 
sion and  rebellion  over  the  diet  program. 

Her  mother,  on  being  called  in  and  questioned,  reported  that 
the  girl  had  been  growing  steadily  more  and  more  indifferent  and 
lethargic.  It  had  been  natural  in  her  childhood  years  for  her  to 
express  herself  freely,  but  she  had  seemed  to  become  so  sensitive 
to  criticism  that  she  had  gradually  ceased  to  talk  freely.  No 
matter  wrhat  was  said  or  done  in  matters  that  would  concern  her 
she  would  acquiesce  without  objection  or  comment  or  any 
normal  expression  of  her  own  wishes  and  opinions.  This  seeming 
contentment  or  indifference  was,  it  appeared  in  the  analysis,  en- 
tirely assumed,  for  inwardly  she  would  be  in  a  tumult  of  rebellion, 
resentment  -and  disappointment,  while  holding  herself  outwardly 
calm. 

The  analysis  revealed  a  two-fold  source  of  this  great  repres- 
sion. As  the  work  progressed,  it  was  noted  that  the  girl  was  re- 
straining herself  from  any  normal  sort  of  expression,  and  that  at 
the  same  time  she  seemed  eager  to  make  a  place  for  herself  and 
have  a  position  of  leadership.  When  this  great  desire  for  initia- 
tive and  self-expression  was  touched  upon  in  the  conversation, 
she  immediately  began  to  twitch  and  jerk  and  to  lose  all  muscular 
control.  At  once  the  conversation  was  turned  to  other  matters 
and  some  encouragement  was  offered  to  quiet  her  fear,  which  was 
always  great  when  she  found  these  attacks  coming  on.  After  she 
had  gotten  quieted  again  and  all  was  running  smoothly,  the  con- 
versation was  once  more  turned  to  the  subject  of  her  strong  desire 
to  take  the  initiative.  At  once  she  was  thrown  into  a  struggle  to 
avert  another  spasm  of  uncontrol.  Again  by  turning  the  subject 


330  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

of  conversation  and  quieting  her  fear  the  spasm  was  prevented 
from  running  its  course  into  complete  muscular  uncontrol  and  un- 
consciousness. In  the  course  of  weeks  of  careful  work  in  removing 
her  fear  and  discharging  other  repressions,  it  was  finally  possible 
to  deal  bit  by  bit  with  this  fundamental  complex  that  surrounded 
her  desire  for  self-expression  and  leadership.  The  barrier  of  in- 
hibitions was  slowly  removed  and  at  the  same  time  a  constructive 
program  of  both  thought  and  action  was  mapped  out  for  her  to 
follow  that  gave  her  opportunity,  little  by  little,  to  live  again  the 
life  of  initiative  and  self-expression  that  was  natural  to  her,  and 
that  had  been  hers  up  until  the  age  of  about  fourteen.  Week  by 
week,  as  the  various  repressions  and  emotional  conflicts  were  re- 
solved and  an  outlet  for  her  intense  desire  to  live  a  normal  life  of 
self-expression  was  provided,  the  attacks  lessened  in  frequency 
and  in  violence,  while  their  after-effects  grew  less  and  less  deplet- 
ing, so  that  often  it  was  not  possible  to  detect,  within  an  hour 
or  two  after  a  spasm,  that  she  had  had  any  attack. 

The  beginning  of  her  repression  of  initiative  was  in  her  four- 
teenth year  and  was  brought  on  as  follows:  It  seems  that  she 
was  so  full  of  initiative,  so  eager  to  take  the  lead  in  everything, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  capable  and  so  overflowing  with  life  and 
energy,  that  she  was  completely  dominating  her  older  sister,  and 
without  being  consciously  or  rudely  self-assertive,  she  was  never- 
theless having  her  owrn  way  about  things  where  the  sister  was  con- 
cerned. The  girl  was  simply  bubbling  over  with  life  and  vitality, 
and  developing  so  rapidly  and  vigorously  that  she  was  crowding 
the  older  sister  to  the  wall.  The  mother  reports  that  she  feared 
that  the  older  sister  would  not  have  a  proper  chance  to  develop, 
and  she  therefore  felt  that  she  should  do  something  to  check  the 
eagerness  of  the  younger  girl  to  take  the  leadership  in  everything. 
She  therefore  took  a  vigorous  hand  in  the  proceedings,  rebuked 
the  younger  girl  severely  for  her  forwardness  and  domination,  and 
forbade  that  this  sort  of  thing  should  continue,  ordering  her  to 
stop  trying  to  "run  everything, "  but  to  give  way  to  her  sister  and 
let  her  have  a  chance.  From  that  moment  the  girl  ceased  all  at- 
tempts to  have  her  own  way  openly,  dropping  all  her  former  vigor 
and  spontaneous  assumption  of  leadership,  her  eager  and  quick 
expression  of  her  own  wishes  and  opinions  in  matters  where  her 
sister  was  concerned,  as  though  she  had  been  stunned,  as  indeed, 
with  her  delicate  and  sensitive  nature,  she  was.  She  had  not 
been  consciously  forward,  dominating,  and  aggressive,  but  simply 
thoughtless  and  exuberant  in  her  spontaneous  self-expression, 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  331 

in  which  she  was  obtaining  huge  satisfaction.  Because  she  was 
at  the  same  time  very  sensitive,  the  rebuke  turned  her  com- 
pletely in  upon  herself,  crushing  this  carefree  spontaneity  and 
shocking  her  into  inaction.  She  was  hurt  and  she  could  not 
right  herself.  So  deep  was  the  hurt  that  the  girl  seems  to  have 
no  memory  of  the  incident  of  the  rebuke  at  all.  She  remembers 
well  that  as  a  young  girl  she  was  exuberant,  vigorous,  quick  of 
tongue  and  pushing  out  to  take  leadership  everywhere,  but  she 
has  no  memory  at  all  of  when  the  change  from  this  began  to  take 
place. 

In  the  work  with  her  in  analysis  and  re-education,  she  has 
shown  this  great  sensitiveness,  this  quickness  of  response,  not 
needing  to  be  dealt  with  vigorously  or  sternly,  but  willing  to  be 
guided  by  the  gentlest  of  methods,  wrhere  others  would  have  to  be 
dealt  with  very  firmly,  or  even  with  considerable  forcefulness,to 
get  them  to  follow  directions.  She  did  not  lose  her  desire  to  lead, 
or  her  hunger  for  self-expression,  with  the  mother's  rebuke,  but 
she  seemed  to  be  inhibited  from  showing  any  of  her  former  in- 
itiative again  in  matters  within  the  family.  She  let  her  sister 
have  her  way,  to  all  outward  appearances  being  contented  and 
happy,  and  the  mother  congratulated  herself  that  she  had  been 
so  easily  successful  in  putting  a  stop  to  what  she  had  considered 
undesirable  behavior,  not  realizing  the  actual  harm  she  had  done. 

Inwardly,  however,  the  girl  was  full  of  rebellion  and  disap- 
pointment, but  she  could  not  pass  the  barrier  that  had  been  set  up. 
Instead  of  merely  reducing  her  impetuous  initiative,  she  ceased 
it  altogether.  It  developed  in  the  analysis  that  she  was  uncon- 
sciously taking  the  position  that  if  she  could  not  be  allowed  the 
expression  and  leadership  that  she  craved,  she  would  not  try  to 
be  anything  at  all  or  make  any  sort  of  wish  or  desire  known  in  any 
open  way  in  opposition  to  what  had  been  proposed.  She  inward- 
ly "threw  up  her  hands  and  quit,"  not  consciously  spiteful,  but 
hopeless  and  confused,  bruised  and  thwarted.  Then  the  spasms, 
with  their  accompanying  loss  of  consciousness,  began  to  make 
their  appearance,  and  a  second  source  of  abnormal  repression  was 
developed.  She  began  to  be  greatly  terrified  lest  she  lose  control 
in  everything,  since  she  found  that  she  had  no  control  over  either 
her  body  or  her  mind  when  these  attacks  would  come  on.  This 
sense  of  the  loss  of  control  so  filled  her  with  fear,  humiliation,  and 
loss  of  self-respect  that  she  rapidly  changed  in  all  her  relations 
from  the  exuberant,  expressive  girl  she  had  been,  always  eager  to 
offer  an  opinion,  hasty  of  temper  and  quick  of  tongue,  to  one  who 


332  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

was  reticent,  indifferent  (outwardly  only),  very  quiet,  apparently 
only  a  disinterested  observer  or  on-looker,  This  was  all  done  to 
protect  herself.  She  felt  that  since  she  had  lost  control  in  one 
thing,  she  was  in  danger  of  losing  control  in  everything.  There- 
fore, in  the  effort  to  furnish  proof  to  herself  that  she  could  exer- 
cise control,  that  she  still  had  hold  of  herself  in  some  respects 
at  least,  she  refused  to  allow  herself  any  sort  of  normal  self 
expression.  She  was  not,  of  course,  conscious  that  this  repres- 
sion and  restraint  in  every  regard  was  increasing  her  malady.  In 
fact,  she  thought  that  it  was  helping  it,  or  at  least  was  preventing 
it  from  spreading  to  everything  else,  and  from  becoming  more  fre- 
quent in  occurrence  than  it  otherwise  would  be  were  she  not  hold- 
ing this  constant  check  upon  herself.  She  was  confident  that,  so 
long  as  she  could  exercise  control  in  something,  she  was  at  least 
that  much  to  the  good.  The  inhibitions  against  any  sort  of  self- 
expression  grew  rapidly,  and  a  psychosis  was  formed  so  that  she 
became  actually  unable  to  assert  herself  in  any  normal  fashion  at 
all.  Instead  of  really  being  in  control  of  herself  as  she  thought, 
she  was  in  fact  being  controlled  by  the  psychosis  of  fear,  and  by 
the  psychosis  which  had  been  formed  by  the  severe  rebuke 
received  when  but  a  young  girl,  with  their  accompanying  inhibit- 
ing complexes.  Of  her  fear  of  loss  of  control  she  was  quite 
conscious,  but  she  did  not  know  that  it  had  come  to  dominate 
her  in  an  abnormal  manner.  But  of  the  psychosis  formed  by  her 
mother's  rebuke  she  was  entirely  unconscious,  merely  finding 
herself  inhibited  from  self-expression  in  matters  where  her  family 
adjustments  were  concerned.  Thus  both  within  and  without  her 
family  she  found  herself  constantly  pushed  into  the  background, 
unable  to  make  headway  or  retain  her  own  place  against  those 
who  might  be  pushing  ahead  foe  recognition  in  her  stead.  The 
feeling  of  helplessness  and  the  constant  thwarting  brought  inner 
anger  and  great  impatience,  with  an  intense  sense  of  utter  defeat 
that  were  crushing  her.  She  was  constantly  eager  for  self- 
expression,  yet  found  herself  inhibited  and  compelled  to  see 
others  forging  ahead  of  her  and  taking  the  lead  in  matters  that 
she  had  been  given  charge  ol 

Any  attempt  heretofore  to  control  her  in  the  way  of  following 
some  rigid  regime  for  her  health  had  been  met  by  her  with  stub- 
born inner  rebellion.  She  would  make  no  objection  openly,  but 
there  would  come  a  look  into  her  eyes  of  stubborn  and  dogged  an- 
ger as  of  a  caged  thing.  And  though  she  said  nothing,  yet  she 
would  go  ahead  and  eat  and  sleep  and  exercise  in  just  the  way  she 


Margaret  J .  Hamilton  333 

pleased,  irrespective  of  prescription.  She  felt  this  same  anger 
and  repressed  rebellion  over  any  attempt  to  control  her,  or  to 
classify  her  in  with  any  one  else  in  any  way,  either  in  speech,  or 
dress,  or  action,  so  strong  was  her  desire  to  have  her  own  way,  to 
take  the  leadership,  to  have  some  self-expression.  There  was, 
thus,  a  pride,  conceit,  and  selfishness  present  in  her  that  had  to 
be  dealt  with  and  changed  before  she  could  be  brought  to  view 
her  varied  problems  in  any  healthful  fashion  or  make  her  adjust- 
ments in  such  a  way  as  to  gain  expression  without  conflict.  It 
should  be  noted  that  her  pride,  conceit,  and  selfishness  were  not 
in  any  sense  abnormal  in  respect  of  being  more  abundant  or  more 
pefsistent  than  one  finds  in  many  a  healthy  normal  girl.  But 
because  of  her  peculiar  sensitiveness  and  her  very  natural  and 
worthy  desire  for  self-expression,  these  brought  her  great  conflict 
and  prevented  her  from  making  the  necessary  adjustments. 

After  several  visits  to  the  clinic,  arrangements  were  made  for 
her  to  come  for  private  work.  For  over  a  month  the  progress  was 
was  slow,  The  girl  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of  semi-stupor,  at 
times,  so  little  interest  did  she  show  in  what  was  being  said.  At 
other  times  she  would  seem  to  be  quietly  on  guard,  observing 
what  took  place  as  though  curious  what  it  was  all  about  and  what 
would  be  said  next,  but  never  offering  to  enter  actively  into  mat- 
ters herself.  This  apparent  stupor  and  inability  or  refusal  to  ex- 
press herself,  or  show  any  interest,  grew  out  of  her  fear,  as  I  have 
said,  lest  she  should  lose  control  should  she  allow  herself  any  gen- 
uine and  free  expression  of  opinion,  feeling,  or  desire.  The  result 
was  that  she  did  not  seem,  at  first,  to  be  even  normally  intelligent. 
However,  as  the  weeks  went  on,  and  as  the  nature  and  causes  of 
her  malady  were  revealed  to  her,  and  some  of  the  inhibitions  and 
repressions  had  been  somewhat  lifted,  she  became  more  interested 
and  finally  gave  all  attention  and  support  to  carrying  out  the  pro- 
gram laid  down  for  her,  even  in  all  those  matters  where  she  had 
heretofore  been  most  stubborn  and  rebellious. 

The  work  of  re-education  had  to  be  directed  first  to  the 
task  of  lifting  this  burden  of  fear  from  her  mind,  and  then  she  had 
to  be  taught  how  to  take  some  steps  toward  the  self-expression 
she  had  always  repressed.  While  there  were  many  inhibitions 
to  be  removed,  and  many  related  complexes  to  be  "discharged", 
all  of  which  helped  to  put  the  girl  more  and  more  into  command 
of  herself,  the  fear  of  these  attacks  lifted  rapidly  in  proportion  as 
she  began  to  understand  their  source,  and  as  she  gained  hope  of 
coming  into  such  control  of  herself  that  they  need  not  continue. 


334  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

This  lifting  of  her  fear  freed  her  from  the  repressions  which  it  had 
caused,  and  she  found  herself  able  to  give  expression  where  before 
she  had  been  so  greatly  inhibited.  At  once,  with  the  allaying  of 
her  fear,  her  attacks  grew  less  frequent  and  less  violent,  and  as 
the  work  of  re-education  progressed  in  the  direction  of  teaching 
her  how  to  come  out  of  herself  and  find  that  expression  which  had 
been  repressed  from  her  fourteenth  year,  these  attacks  ceased. 
She  was  able  to  obtain  constant  proof  from  day  to  day  that  con- 
trol lay,  not  in  repression  at  every  point,  but  in  learning  how  to 
express  herself  without  fear  and  without  conflict  with  others,  and 
how  to  take  second  place  when  that  was  the  thoughtful  and  gen- 
erous thing  to  do,  without  at  the  same  time  feeling  crushed  and 
thwarted.  This  daily  experience  in  cause  and  effect,  and  this 
control,  which  was  not  a  grim  repression  but  a  free  and  healthful 
expression,  not  only  removed  the  burden  of  fear,  but  also  so  freed 
her  intellectual  processes  that  she  has  from  the  first  lifting  of  the 
fear  showed  an  intelligence  of  a  rare  quality,  an  intelligence  of 
which  there  was  no  indication  when  work  was  first  begun  with 
her,  so  greatly  had  she  been  inhibited. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  lifting  of  this  fear,  the  work  of  re- 
education had  to  deal  with  the  psychosis  formed  by  her  reaction 
to  the  rebuke  administered  by  her  mother  as  above  recited.  Be- 
cause of  this  psychosis  she  was  inhibited  from  making  her  adjust- 
ments at  home.  She  was,  as  I  said,  docile,  agreeable,  assenting 
to  whatever  went  on  in  her  family  life.  To  the  eye  of  the  layman, 
she  had  been  contented,  and  if  not  happy,  at  least  not  openly  un- 
happy, so  that  her  acquiescence  passed  for  listlessness  and  lack 
of  interest  rather  than  for  what  it  really  was.  With  the  lifting  of 
her  fear  lest  she  lose  all  control  if  she  allowed  herself  .any  expres- 
sion, she  became  willing  to  follow  a  simple  program  involving  the 
exercise  of  some  initiative  and  the  expression  of  her  wishes  and 
opinions  in  matters  that  came  up  where  her  interests  were  in- 
volved. By  degrees  she  came  to  be  able  to  live  a  normal  life, 
able  to  express  herself  freely  and  frankly,  but  without  suffering 
from  the  opposition  that  normally  one  meets  from  others — able, 
in  other  words,  to  give  and  take  and  make  her  adjustments  in 
a  healthy,  normal  fashion. 

Mention  was  made  above  of  the  fact  that  a  large  part  of  the 
work  of  the  analyst  is  in  the  moral  field,  in  the  reconstruction  of 
the  moral  life.  In  this  case,  a  great  deal  of  the  work  of  re-edu- 
cation was  entirely  within  the  moral  realm.  It  was  her  uncon- 
scious selfishness,  thoughtless  and  exuberant  as  she  was,  that 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  335 

brought  on  her  first  difficulty,  for  she  was  dominating  her  sister 
in  a  way  that  was  good  for  neither  her  sister  or  herself.  When 
she  was  rebuked,  her  pride  and  egoism  were  sorely  wounded.  In 
connection  with  her  spasm,  moreover,  she  suffered  very  great  hu- 
miliation. In  none  of  these  characteristics  of  conceit  or  selfish- 
ness was  she  obtrusive  or  abnormal,  but  they  prevented  her  from 
making  her  adjustments,  and  were  a  constant  source  of  emotion- 
al repression  and  suffering.  The  work  of  re-education  had  thus 
constantly  to  deal  with  the  moral  life  of  this  student,  and  only  as 
she  became  less  self-centered,  and  has  developed  a  robust  and 
healthy  unselfishness  in  all  her  social  relations,  and  at  the  same 
time  has  taken  an  entirely  different  attitude  toward  herself,  has 
she  found  it  possible  to  make  her  adjustments  without  stress  and 
conflict.  With  these  fundamental  changes  of  attitude  there 
have  come  back  to  her,  from  her  every  relationship,  reactions  that 
have  been  a  constant  encouragement  for  her  to  make  effort 
to  build  the  new  character,  and  she  has  had  constant  proof 
of  the  relationship  between  the  fundamental  currents  of  her  moral 
life  and  her  suffering,  both  physical  and  mental.  Without  this 
fundamental  change  in  her  character,  there  would  be  no  guar- 
antee against  a  renewal  of  the  repression  and  a  return  of  the  at- 
tacks. But  with  this  bringing  to  pass  of  a  healthful  moral  unity, 
there  has  been  erected  a  bulwark  against  the  return  of  her  diffi- 
culties, just  because  she  reacts  to  all  her  life  situations  with  a 
healthy  normality  of  thought  and  feeling  that  prevents  the  form- 
ation of  the  repressions. 

She  has  had  to  be  taught  how  to  come  forth,  as  it  were,  and 
meet  life.  But  in  order  to  do  this,  the  inhibitions  that  had  been 
formed  had  to  be  removed.  The  removal  of  the  great  fear  of  the 
spasms,  and  of  the  idea  that  she  could  only  be  sure  of  herself  as 
she  refrained  from  any  sort  of  expression,  made  it  possible  for  her 
begin  to  allow  herself  to  move  out  from  her  old  habits  of  thought 
and  feeling  and  meet  her  environment  in  more  normal  fashion. 
There  then  had  to  be  added  the  fundamental  work  upon  her  char- 
acter, for  her  sensitive  pride  and  her  self-conceit  were  constant 
sources  of  inhibition  as  well  as  of  repression.  This  work  was  all 
done  by  making  analysis  from  lesson  to  lesson  of  the  mental  fac- 
tors out  of  which  her  reaction  to  her  daily  affairs  grew,  so  that  she 
could  see  what  was  responsible  for  her  inhibitions,  her  wrong 
moves,  and  hence  for  her  repressions  and  hurts.  Step  by  step 
with  the  analysis  the  more  healthful  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling 
were  outlined  to  her,  and  a  program  for  putting  these  better  atti- 


336  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

tudes  of  mind  into  action  was  devised,  so  that  she  would  have 
constant  and  fruitful  practice  in  making  her  adjustments.  The 
spasms  have  ceased  to  recur,  and  she  is  showing  fine  intelligence 
and  taking  her  place  in  her  work  with  vigor  and  competency. 
She  has  come  to  understand  herself,  and  hence  to  control  herself, 
so  that  she  is  making  her  adjustments  in  thought,  feeling,  and'ac- 
tion  in  a  healthy  normal  fashion. 

Case  2.  This  student  was  a  young  woman  of  twenty -five,  a 
teacher  in  the  public  schools.  She  was  sent  to  my  office  by  her 
physician.  When  I  went  into  the  reception  room  where  she  had 
been  directed  to  wait  for  me,  I  found  her  full  of  irritation  because 
she  felt  ill-used  over  not  having  been  given  instant  attention  on 
coming  in.  At  once  upon  introducing  myself,  she  broke  out 
in  complaint  about  a  table  that  was  in  the  room,  bluntly  asking 
me  why  I  kept  such  a  plain  ugly  piece  of  furniture  around.  She 
was  loud  in  speech,  opinionated,  critical,  running  on  from  one 
topic  of  conversation  to  another,  beside  herself  with  irritation. 
She  showed  this  lack  of  control  about  everything,  exploding, 
chattering,  and  fussing  through  the  first  two  or  three  interviews, 
truculent,  full  of  hostility  and  resistance,  quick  to  express  biting 
criticism  in  regard  to  any  matter  that  might  come  up. 

At  the  first  interview  I  asked  her  why  she  had  come  to  me 
and  what  her  difficulty  was.  She  replied  blusteringly :  "Well! 
Can't  you  see?  My  doctor  told  me  you  handled  all  his  most 
difficult  cases,  and  I  should  expect  you  to  be  able  to  know  what 
ails  me  without  my  telling  you  anything." 

However,  I  secured  from  her  the  information  (later  corrob- 
orated) that  she  had  suffered  for  many  years  with  what  had  al- 
ways been  diagnosed  as  epileptic  seizures,  sometimes  as  "scin- 
tillating epilepsy";  that  these  seizures  had  always  occurred  at 
home  until  recently,  when  she  had  been  taken  with  one  of  them 
in  her  school  room,  and  the  children  had  called  in  the  principal. 
Now,  since  the  attacks  were  no  longer  confined  to  her  home,  she 
feared  lest  the  school  authorities  would  discover  the  nature  of 
her  malady  and  she  would  lose  her  position.  As  her  attacks  were 
increasing  in  severity  and  frequency,  and  she  found  herself  feel- 
ing ever  more  helpless  and  irritable,  she  feared  she  would  finally  be 
sent  away  to  a  sanatorium,  as,  indeed,  had  been  strongly  advised. 

She  insisted  also  that  she  was  losing  her  memory.  In  fact, 
she  declared  that  she  was  becoming  incapable  and  inefficient  in 
every  way.  This  attitude  toward  herself,  it  will  be  seen,  grew 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  337 

partly  out  of  her  intense  desire  to  forget  the  causes  of  her  diffi- 
culties. I  at  once  asked  her  a  few  questions  that  brought  out  the 
details  of  some  outings  she  had  enjoyed  three  or  four  years  since, 
and  when  I  pointed  out  that  her  memory  seemed  to  be  all  right 
in  this  regard  she  thought  it  very  strange,  as  she  insisted  that  she 
did  not  feel  as  though  she  were  able  to  remember  anything  at  all. 
She  had  been  positive  for  some  time  that  she  had  been  losing  all 
her  ability  in  this  direction.  Finding  herself  thus  mistaken,  she 
gave  me  her  attention  and  seemed  to  feel  that  perhaps  something 
might  be  done  to  help  her.  She  ceased  to  cavil  or  complain  at  me 
and  instead  gave  me  all  the  attention  she  could  and  tried  sincerely 
to  co-operate  with  me  so  far  as  she  was  able.  For  several  visits 
she  was  too  nervous  and  excited  for  me  to  enter  into  any  analyt- 
ical work  with  her;  but  as  I  gained  her  confidence,  she  came  to 
talk  freely,  and  then  it  was  that  I  was  able  to  uncover  the  funda- 
mental cause  of  her  trouble. 

The  underlying  basis  of  her  attacks  proved  to  be  what  I  may 
call  a  psychosis  of  rebellion.  There  had  been  developed  in  her  an 
exceeding  unwillingness  to  be  controlled  or  directed  by  anyone — • 
a  resentful  rebelliousness  against  following  any  program  arranged 
for  her  by  any  one  else.  This  psychosis  of  rebelliousness  against 
any  control  or  direction  was  showing  itself  particularly  in  her 
relations  to  her  parents,  with  whom  she  was  still  living.  She  in- 
sisted that  she  hated  to  live  at  home,  that  this  made  her  very  un- 
happy, and  that  her  parents  were  always  trying  to  get  her  to  do 
something  that  she  did  not  want  to  do.  She  went  into  a  tirade 
about  how  nothing  made  her  so  furious  as  to  be  compelled  or  even 
urged  to  do  something  that  she  did  not  want  to  do.  There  were 
times,  she  said,  when  she  thoroughly  hated  her  mother,  and  then 
times  when  it  was  the  father  whom  she  hated.  When  asked  what 
particular  thing  they  did  that  made  her  hate  them,  she  replied: 
"I  don't  know.  Sometimes  when  I  just  look  at  them  it  reminds 
me  of  times  when  they  made  me  do  things  I  did  not  want  to  do, 
and  I  just  get  angry  at  the  thought."  When  I  remarked  that 
this  was  a  pity,  that  there  were  times  when  children  had  to  be  gov- 
erned and  be  made  obedient  if  they  were  ever  going  to  amount  to 
anything,  and  that  while,  as  a  child,  not  understanding  this,  she 
might  be  angry  over -being  controlled,  yet  now  that  she  was  teach- 
ing school  and  could  see  the  importance  and  reasonableness  of 
governing  children,  she  surely  should  not  feel  that  way — she  burst 
forth  with:  "Well!  It  was  the  way  they  did  it.  Away  back 
when  I  was  only  fourteen  years  old  there  was  some  sort  of  enter- 


Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 


tainment  going  on  at  school,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  that  I  would  not  take  any  part  in 
it.  And  they  just  made  me.  From  that  time  I  have  felt  so  re- 
bellious and  ugly  and  hateful  and  resentful !  The  very  thought  of 
it  makes  me  feel  as  though  I  could  do  something  terrible  right 
now!"  Whereupon  she  turned  very  white  and  seemed  to  be  ill  with 
nausea.  I  asked  her  what  was  the  matter  and  she  said,  "I  am 
turning  very  sick.  Whenever  I  think  of  that  it  always  makes 
me  so  very  ill. " 

I  then  tried  to  go  carefully  with  her  into  some  of  the  details 
of  the  school  program  incident,  and  when  I  came  to  asking  what 
part  she  had  in  it,  she  stumbled  and  stammered  and  finally  said 
that  she  could  not  talk  about  it  at  all.  "I  never  was  so  angry  in 
my  life,"  said  she.  (It  later  developed  that  she  became  ill  with 
intense  nausea  and  fainted,  at  the  time,  in  her  struggle  over  being 
urged  against  her  will  to  take  part  in  the  program,  and  so  was 
excused  from  participation.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  be- 
ginning of  her  so-called  epileptic  symptoms). 

I  suggested  that  if  she  would  tell  me  all  about  it,  I  might  be 
able  to  help  her  not  to  feel  so  bitterly,  as  the  memory  seemed  to 
cause  her  so  much  suffering  and  to  be  spoiling  her  life.  "But, 
she  replied,  "I  don't  think  of  this  very  often.  I  do  not  know 
when  I  have  remembered  it  before.  I  never  do  remember  it,  and 
I  would  not  have  thought  of  it  now,  only  that  something  you  said 
seemed  to  bring  it  all  back  to  me. "  I  pointed  out  to  her  that  she 
had  nevertheless,  taken  this  same  attitude  of  rebellion  which  she 
was  exhibiting  now,  more  or  less  ever  since  that  time,  whenever 
anything  came  up  which  she  did  not  wrish  to  do.  This  she  ad- 
mitted, and  seemed  so  exhausted  and  weary  that  I  closed  the  in- 
terview for  that  day. 

At  a  succeeding  interview  I  called  her  mother  into  consul- 
tation. When  I  would  have  spoken  with  the  mother  privately, 
the  girl  at  once  made  vigorous  protest,  so  I  said  it  would  be  per- 
fectly all  right  for  us  to  talk  matters  over  together.  I  then  told 
the  mother  that  perhaps  she  could  help  us  by  shedding  some  light 
upon  the  causes  of  her  daughter's  seizures,  by  telling  us  what  she 
thought  led  up  to  these  frequent  attacks.  The  mother  turned  to 
her  daughter  with  the  remark,  "Well,  I  should  think  you  could 
have  told  her  that.  It 's  always  about  something  that  I  want  you 
to  do. "  This  and  further  remarks  helped  to  corroborate  my 
findings  concerning  the  cause  of  the  girl's  repressions.  I  at 
once  went  to  work  upon  this  serious  psychosis  which  had  formed 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  339 

because  of  her  rebellion  against  any  sort  of  control  or  direction. 
During  the  course  of  only  a  dozen  interviews,  extending  over  four 
weeks'  time,  it  was  possible  to  help  her  so  to  change  her  attitude 
about  such  matters  that  the  attacks  ceased,  and  over  a  year  later, 
she  came  in  and  reported  that  she  had  had  no  recurrence  of  the 
difficulty,  but  was  well  and  happy  and  getting  on  successfully  at 
home  and  in  school.  She  looked  very  well  indeed,  and  showed 
none  of  the  former  opinionated,  critical,  irritable  and  uncon- 
trolled manner  of  speech  and  action. 

The  work  which  I  was  able  to  do  for  her  in  the  few  inter- 
views was  concerned  with  helping  her  to  understand  why  her  par- 
ents and  teachers  had  insisted,  both  at  other  times,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  incident  that  has  been  described,  upon  her  doing  things 
that  she  did  not  always  choose  to  do  herself.  She  also  had  to  be 
brought  to  an  understanding  of  what  it  was  in  herself  that  made 
her  so  rebellious  against  direction  and  control,  or  having  any  sort 
of  program  arranged  for  her  by  others.  When  she  was  enabled 
to  take  a  different  viewpoint,  a  viewpoint  dictated  not  by  her 
feelings  of  resentment  and  repression,  but  by  the  facts  in  the  case, 
she  was  able  also  to  take  a  different  attitude  toward  herself  and 
toward  her  parents,  so  that  she  no  longer  had  roused  within  her 
the  terrible  conflict  and  rebellion  when  there  were  things  asked 
of  her  by  others,  or  required  of  her  by  reason  of  the  circumstances 
of  her  life,  which  she  would  not  have  wished  to  do.  She  became, 
thus,  able  to  make  her  adjustments  at  these  points  without 
emotional  repression. 

This  case  in  some  respects  makes  an  interesting  contrast  with 
the  first  case  discussed,  while  in  others  it  very  closely  parallels  the 
first.  There  is  great  rebellion  in  each  case  against  any  sort  of 
control  or  direction.  The  first  was  restrained  by  rebuke  from  do- 
ing what  she  wanted  to  do,  and  in  her  hurt  and  rebellion,  she 
withdrew  within  herself  and  ceased  from  all  normal  expression  of 
her  own  wishes,  The  second  was  urged  to  do  what  she  did  not 
choose  to  do,  and  she  struck  back  with  all  her  force,  exploding  on 
every  possible  occasion.  In  each  case  repression  is  the  primary 
cause  of  the  attacks,  but  aside  from  the  epileptic  symptoms,  the 
way  in  which  the  repressions  manifested  themselves,  is  entirely 
opposite  in  the  two  cases.  Fear  of  oncoming  attacks  and  of  what 
this  sort  of  thing  would  mean  to  future  happiness  and  success  was 
present  ineach  case,  but  in  this  one  thisf  ear  led  to  further  repressions 
further  curbing  of  all  expression  of  desire,  complaint,  or  objection, 
while  in  the  other  it  led  to  reckless  extravagance  in  speech  and 


340  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

conduct  and  a  show  of  irritability  that  was  excessive.  In  the 
first  case,  the  young  woman  has  no  memory  of  the  incident  that 
culminated  in  her  sudden  withdrawal  from  outward  expression, 
so  deep  was  the  hurt  of  the  rebuke.  In  the  second  case  there  is 
detailed  memory  of  the  incident,  but  a  desperate  desire  and  effort 
to  forget  it  and  all  that  was  connected  with  it.  So  strong  was  this 
desire  that  she  claimed  to  have  no  memory,  to  beforgetting  every- 
thing, which,  as  I  have  shown  above,  was  not  in  accord  with  the 
facts.  She  was  honestly  surprised  at  finding  that  she  had  as  good 
a  memory  as  the  average,  so  fierce  had  been  her  eagerness  to  for- 
get this  serious  and  painful  occurrence  and  to  forget 
all  about  her  home  and  the  strife  that  was  constantly  present 
there  between  herself  and  her  people.  Both  these  girls  were  un- 
der strong  emotional  pressure,  were  filled  with  great  emotional 
conflict,  but  the  one  kept  it  hidden,  while  the  other  exploded  on 
every  possible  occasion.  Each  began  to  improve  at  once  as  soon 
as  she  was  relieved  of  the  fear  and  apprehension  of  the  attacks 
and  began  to  understand  the  causes  of  the  spasms  and  to  enter- 
tain hope  that  she  could  get  in  control  and  be  rid  of  her  trouble. 
With  each  there  had  to  be  the  discharge  of  the  emotional  burden 
of  the  complexes  that  had  been  formed.  This  discharge  did  not 
come  about  through  the  mere  verbal  recital  of  their  difficulties. 
Neither  was  the  emotional  repression  and  conflict  removed  by 
giving  vent  to  the  feelings  involved  in  the  repressed  and  rebel- 
lious condition.  The  emotional  conflict  ceased,  or  the  discharge 
took  place,  in  proportion  as  the  students  were  able  to  accept  and 
follow  a  new  program  of  thought  and  action  in  making  their  ad- 
justments. This  new  program  became  possible  for  them  in  pro- 
portion as  they  came  to  understand  the  causes  at  work  within 
them  that  produced  their  conflicts  and  hence  their  symptoms  and 
mal-adjustments,  and  also  as  they  came  to  understand  the  causes 
at  work  in  those  with  whom  they  were  associated  and  in  whose 
presence,  or  in  reaction  to  whom,  these  conflicts  were  aroused. 

This  understanding  brought  great  relief  at  once  and  paved 
the  way  for  an  entirely  different  attitude  both  toward  themselves 
and  toward  those  against  whom  they  felt  so  much  rebellion,  both 
in  memory  and  in  daily  intercourse.  As  the  girl  in  the  second 
case,  for  example,  came  to  understand  without  resistance  why  her 
parents  were  so  eager  to  have  her  take  part  in  the  program,  why 
they  urged  her,  both  as  a  young  child  and  now,  to  do  things  which 
she  might  not  choose  to  do,  and  why  she  reacted  as  she  did,  she 
underwent  a  change  of  attitude  in  regard  to  these  matters,  and 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  341 

soon  the  memories  of  the  unhappy  incidents  and  the  recurrence  of 
similar  circumstances  in  her  daily  life  ceased  to  arouse  her  re- 
sentment and  rebellion.  She  was  able  to  acquiesce  in  their  wishes 
when  it  seemed  wise  and  just  to  do  so,  without  being  in  a  temper 
about  it,  or  to  excuse  herself  from  conforming  to  their  wishes 
when  this  seemed  to  be  the  just  and  sensible  thing  to  do,  without 
being  torn  with  conflict  and  repression.  She  had,  with  the 
knowledge  of  herself  and  of  them,  come  to  change  her  attitude. 

This  production  of  an  understanding  of  the  situation  is  the 
fundamental  part  of  the  work  of  re-education,  and  is  possible  only 
in  so  far  as  the  student  is  willing  and  able  to  learn  and  to  under- 
stand. This  involves,  of  course,  the  removal  of  such  inhibitory 
ideas  and  attitudes  as  keep  the  individual  in  a  state  of  resistance 
against  facing  the  facts,  or  against  a  frank  and  fair  consideration 
of  the  facts.  It  is  of  course  not  possible,  nor  essential,  for  the 
students  to  gain  a  complete  understanding  of  all  the  elements  in- 
volved in  the  causes  of  conduct  in  themselves  and  in  others,  but 
enough  must  be  obtained  to  help  them  to  take  a  different  atti- 
tude, and  to  be  willing  to  follow  a  different  program  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  action. 

Case  3.  This  student,  whom  we  shall  call  Mrs.  Z.,  is  a  woman 
in  the  middle  fifties.  Her  family  induced  her  to  take  up  psycho- 
logical work  because  she  was  suffering  from  loss  of  memory. 
This  amnesic  condition  had  come  on  gradually,  being  first  no- 
ticed as  "  absent-mindedness  "  about  household  and  family  affairs. 
The  "absent-mindedness"  had  grown  gradually  worse  until  it  in- 
cluded everything  that  went  on  about  her,  everything  that  was 
said  or  done,  whether  by  herself  or  others,  with  the  exception  that 
in  all  matters  relating  to  the  financial  affairs  of  the  family,  pro- 
posed expenditures  and  the  like,  she  had  no  memory  difficulties. 
And,  moreover,  in  spite  of  lack  of  dependability  in  other  direc- 
tions, hers  was  still,  as  was  always  the  case  before  her  trouble 
came  upon  her,  the  deciding  voice  in  such  matters.  In  following 
the  outline  of  the  case  it  is  essential  to  keep  this  point  in  mind,  for 
it  will  appear  that  her  amnesia  grew  out  of  emotional  repression 
and  conflict  about  matters  in  which  she  was  receiving  no  ade- 
quate satisfaction  in  her  emotional  life,  and  with  regard  to  which 
she  was  hence  driven  in  upon  herself.  In  the  matter  of  handling 
the  family  expenditures,  she  had  always  been  able  to  maintain 
her  place  and  position,  and  it  was  at  this  point  only  that  her  con- 
scious life  retained  some  satisfying  contact  with  the  objective 


Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 


world,  and  hence  it  was  that  here  she  had  not  yet  begun  to  suffer 
from  loss  of  memory.  In  regard  to  all  other  matters  she  was  grow- 
ing more  and  more  irresponsible  so  that  she  was  rendered  unable 
even  to  do  her  work  as  housekeeper  satisfactorily.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  cooking,  for  example,  though  in  former  times  a  most  ex- 
cellent cook,  she  had  come  to  the  point  where  she  could  not  re- 
member what  ingredients  to  use  in  preparing  the  simplest  dishes, 
nor  could  she  remember  sufficiently  well  to  be  able  to  follow  direc- 
tions given,  nor  once  having  put  things  together,  was  she  able  to 
recall  what  she  had  just  put  into  the  mixture.  As  fast  as  she  was 
told  anything  she  forgot  it,  not  even  remembering  that  she  had 
been  spoken  to.  She  had  lost  all  interest  in  her  housework  and 
in  her  social  activities,  caring  little  about  seeing  or  knowing  any 
one,  or  about  keeping  up  her  old  friendships.  She  was  very  sensi- 
tive about  her  infirmity,  and  had  come  to  hold  herself  in  great  dis- 
trust. In  the  work  of  re-education,  this  loss  of  confidence  in  her- 
self, this  fear  lest  she  show  herself  unable  to  do  things  in  which 
she  had  formerly  been  so  efficient,  was  one  of  the  main  difficulties 
to  be  overcome.  After  the  emotional  tensions  that  were  the 
fundamental  cause  of  her  amnesia  had  been  discharged,  it  was 
only  by  the  most  careful  work  that  she  was  induced,  step  by  step, 
to  take  up  activities  where  she  would  have  to  trust  to  her  mem- 
ory. Her  deep  gratitude  and  delight,  upon  finding  that  her  mem- 
ory did  not  fail  her  at  these  times,  as  she  falteringly  and  timidly 
took  up  from  day  to  day  some  simple  little  responsibilities,  were 
deeply  touching. 

As  has  been  noted,  the  one  interest  which  she  still  retained 
when  work  was  begun  with  her  was  in  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
family.  The  family  consisted  of  husband  and  grown  daughters. 
Unfortunately,  the  daughters  thought  that  by  making  light  of  her 
they  could  induce  her  to  give  better  heed  to  what  was  going  on 
about  her.  At  times  they  would  even  reproach  their  mother  for 
what  seemed  to  them  unwarranted  heedlessness,  for  it  was  un- 
reasonable to  them  that  the  mother  could  remember  so  well  when 
it  came  to  money  matters,  but  should  be  so  thoroughly  and  child- 
ishly unreliable  in  regard  to  everything  else.  This  attitude  of 
chiding  and  contemptuous  reproach  so  filled  the  mother  with 
shame  and  condemnation  before  her  friends  and  her  family  that 
she  withdrew  all  the  more  rapidly  and  completely  from  her  former 
activities,  becoming  daily  more  listless  and  inattentive  to  her  sur- 
roundings, with  the  one  exception  noted. 

While  her  general  health  seemed  fair,  she  showed  at  times 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  343 

evidence  of  great  weariness  and  exhaustion.  Her  face  had  a  grayish 
cast  and  was  full  of  deep  lines,  and  she  appeared  much  older  than 
her  years  would  warrant.  Her  eyes  were  sunken,  with  no  light 
of  interest  flickering  in  them.  In  the  first  interviews  she  was  ex- 
ceedingly diffident,  and  embarrassed.  She  sat  with  her  hand 
over  her  face,  as  though  to  hide  herself  from  observation,  when 
making  response  to  questions. 

The  following  outline  of  the  materials  brought  out  in  the 
analysis  will  serve  to  disclose  the  main  sources  of  the  emotional 
repressions  and  conflicts  that  were  at  the  root  of  her  trouble.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  this  material  was  brought  out  in  just 
the  order  given  here.  In  studying  the  woman's  reactions  both 
to  her  memory  material  and  to  the  various  details  of  her  daily  life, 
the  back-lying  causes  that  motivated  the  unconscious  emotional 
attitudes  were  gradually  discovered  and  brought  into  conscious- 
ness. We  cannot  here  go  into  the  numerous  details  of  the  analy- 
sis and  the  many  steps  by  which,  from  interview  to  interview,  her 
mind  was  brought  through  re-education  to  its  normal  functioning. 
We  must  rather  seek  a  perspective  of  the  whole,  that  the  general 
principles  and  mode  of  procedure  involved  may  become  clear. 

The  salient  facts  are  as  follows:  Her  own  mother  had  been 
the  real  head  of  the  family,  as  the  father  was  lacking  in  executive 
ability.  Between  this  capable  mother  and  the  sensitive,  fine- 
spirited  daughter  there  was  formed  a  very  close  bond  of  love  and 
sympathy  from  the  girl's  earliest  childhood,  each  finding  great 
satisfaction  in  the  other.  When  not  yet  twenty  years  of  age,  the 
girl  married.  The  young  husband  was  not  of  the  same  finely 
wrought,  sensitive  material  as  was  the  wife,  and  could  neither 
appreciate  the  wealth  of  love  that  she  gave,  nor  give  her  adequate 
and  satisfying  expression  of  affection  in  return,  so  that  her  emo- 
tional life  did  not  find  in  her  married  bonds  the  response  that  it 
craved.  From  the  very  first  the  young  wife  found  it  necessary  to 
exercise  super  vision  of  financial  affairs  of  the  family.  She  became 
in  fact,  the  executive  head  of  the  family  in  much  the  same  way  as 
her  mother  had  been,  being  always  deferred  to  in  this  respect  by 
both  husband  and  children.  It  was  due  to  Mrs.  Z's  competent 
management  and  sound  judgment  that  they  were  enabled  not 
only  to  make  both  ends  meet,  but,  with  the  passing  years,  to  ac- 
quire, from  very  small  beginnings,  a  very  considerable  property. 
This  recognition  and  place  which  she  won  for  herself  through  the 
supervision  of  their  finances,  played  an  important  part  in  giving 
the  woman  some  anchorage  for  herself,  and  the  results  shed  an 


344  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

illuminating  light  upon  the  principles  involved  in  the  pathological 
symptoms  which  she  developed;  for  the  fact  that  in  regard  to 
those  things  from  which  she  gained  some  recognition,  she  suffered 
no  amnesia,  nor  loss  of  interest,  while  losing  so  profoundly  in 
other  directions  from  which  she  was  getting  little  or  no  return, 
furnished  additional  evidence  of  the  underlying  nature  of  the 
causes  of  her  malady. 

While  the  husband  showed  her  consideration,  not  only  in 
this  regard  but  in  many  others,  he  was  nevertheless  afflicted  with 
so  violent  and  uncontrollable  a  temper  that  he  would  burst  out 
into  a  tempest  of  anger  over  some  trifle  that  had  gone  wrong  and 
would  abuse  her  with  harsh  words.  These  angry  fits,  with  their 
accompanying  abuse,  hurt  the  sensitive  girl  cruelly,  but  because 
she  feared  that  he  might  do  much  worse  things,  she  never  dared 
to  reproach  him,  never  allowed  him  to  know  how  much  she  was 
hurt  nor  how  she  longed  to  have  him  ask  her  forgiveness  for  his 
outbursts  and  admit  his  gross  injustice  and  cruelty  to  her. 
Being  a  woman  of  great  pride,  with  ambition  to  make  her  mar- 
riage a  success,  she  never  revealed  to  any  one,  not  even  to  her 
mother,  this  source  of  great  disappointment  and  fear.  So  greatly 
did  she  dread  his  outbursts,  and  so  much  shame  did  they  cause 
her,  that,  as  she  expressed  it,  she  lived  for  years  "sitting  on  the 
lid,"  doing  her  utmost,  so  far  as  she  was  able  to  understand  him 
to  prevent  the  outbursts,  and  filled  with  constant  disappointment 
over  the  failure  of  her  married  life  to  approach  what  she  consider- 
ed the  normal  ideal.  She  still  kept  up  correspondence  with  her 
mother,  and  in  this  relationship  was  receiving  much  satisfaction 
in  her  craving  for  tender  affection. 

After  his  unseemly  outbursts  of  temper,  the  husband,  while 
offering  no  apology  nor  showing  evident  remorse,  would  never- 
theless always  want  to  do  something  to  help  her  about  the  house, 
going'out  of  his  way  to  perform  some  little  act  of  helpfulness.  This 
was  of  course,  his  awkward  and  insufficient  way  of  trying  to  show 
his  regret  and  of  endeavoring  to  atone  for  the  wrong  he  had  done 
to  her  and  to  himself.  But  she  was  unable  to  accept  these  in- 
adequate attempts  at  reparation  for  his  misdemeanor,  though 
they  were  the  best  that  his  nature  could  do  in  the  way  of  apology. 

In  time  a  daughter  was  born,  and  on  this  child  the  mother 
lavished  her  affection  during  its  infancy.  But  at  an  early  age, 
the  daughter,  through  the  accident  of  circumstances  so  common 
with  children,  formed  a  habit  that  she  instinctively  felt  she  must 
conceal  from  her  mother,  and  there  began,  because  of  this  secre- 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  345 

tiveness,  a  rapid  estrangement  of  the  daughter 's  affections  and 
confidence.  Here  again  the  mother  began  to  lose  the  return  for 
affection  that  she  was  giving.  A  second  daughter  was  born,  and 
there  grew  up  between  this  child  and  the  mother  the  same  sort  of 
bond  of  mutual  affection  as  the  one  that  had  formerly  existed  be- 
tween Mrs.  Z.  and  her  own  mother.  In  this  child  the  love-life  of 
the  mother  seemed  to  find  more  adequate  return.  But  when  a 
third  child,  also  a  daughter,  was  less  than  two  years  old,  the 
second  child,  then  at  the  age  of  seven,  was  taken  ill  with  a  slow 
paralysis.  Such  was  the  painful  nature  of  the  malady  as  to 
necessitate  the  constant  personal  attendance  of  the  mother,  who, 
stayed  with  the  child  day  and  night,  week  after  week,  chafing 
her  limbs  and  diverting  her  mind,  never  caring  whether  she  her- 
self had  rest  and  sleep  or  not.  So  great  was  the  love  that  she 
bore  the  child,  and  so  adequate  and  nourishing  were  the  affec- 
tion that  she  received  in  return  and  the  satisfaction  that  she 
took  in  the  sacrificial  service,  that  she  went  through  nearly  a 
year  of  this  exhausting  toil  cheerfully,  with  no  physical  break- 
down. We  have  here  a  clear  example  of  the  added  strength  for 
exacting  and  exhausting  tasks,  otherwise  impossible  of  accom- 
plishment, given  by  reason  of  the  nourishment  afforded  by  the 
satisfaction  of  the  emotions.  Where  the  individual  focuses  all  his 
affection  upon  one  thing  only  and  seeks  and  receives  his  satisfac- 
tion from  this  source  alone,  we  must  recognize  the  presence  of  an 
abnormal  condition  in  the  emotional  life.  It  is  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion that  repression,  inhibition,  and  starvation  of  so  strong  an 
emotional  life  as  that  of  this  woman  centered  as  it  was  upon 
practically  a  single  interest,  is  likely  to  result  in  pathological 
conditions. 

After  a  year's  illness  the  child  died.  The  mother's  sorrow 
over  this  loss  was  poignant.  She  could  talk  and  think  of  noth- 
ing but  her  irreparable  loss.  For  a  time  after  the  child's  death 
she  mourned  openly  and  deeply,  but  as  time  went  on,  she  decided 
that  the  brave  and  Christian  thing  to  do  was  to  cease  her  griev- 
ing and  so  she  set  about  trying  to  forget  the  pain  and  become  re- 
conciled. She  became  able  to  go  about  her  work  without  tears, 
and  without  speaking  of  her  loss  to  others.  In  the  course  of 
intervening  years  she  believed  that  she  had  become  completely 
reconciled  and  that  she  had  quite  ceased  to  remember  her  loss  with 
pain.  As  a  matter  of  fact  she  had  actually  succeeded  in  putting 
it  well  out  of  her  conscious  life,  but  nothing  had  taken  its  place 
in  the  conscious  life  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  emotional 


346  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

ings  that  had  found  outlet  and  satisfaction  in  the  child  while  liv- 
ing, and  that  later  had  for  some  time  fed  upon  memories. 

As  time  went  on,  the  youngest  daughter,  following  the  ex- 
ample of  the  eldest  girl,  also  took  to  cavilling,  and  assumed  a  re- 
proachful and  unloving  attitude  toward  the  mother,  and  thus  the 
latter  was  robbed  of  another  channel  through  which  her  emotion- 
al life  might  find  some  expression  and  satisfaction.  Unconscious- 
ly she  withdrew  further  and  further  within  herself.  As  related 
above,  absence  of  mind  and  finally  serious  amnesia  set  in,  accom- 
panied by  an  agonizing  feeling  of  shame  and  condemnation  in  the 
presence  of  her  family  except  in  relation  to  the  one  thing  in  which 
she  had  always  been  respected  and  in  which  she  had  always  held 
her  place,  namely,  the  financial  affairs  of  the  household. 

The  theory  upon  which  the  analysis  and  re-education  are 
carried  on  is  that  the  cause  of  such  conditions  as  were  found  here 
is  to  be  discovered  in  the  emotional  life.  The  channels  through 
which  her  emotional  life  had  sought  outlet  and  return  had  failed 
her  in  that  her  husband  and  her  living  children  gave  her  little  sat- 
isfaction. Further,  the  one  child  upon  which  her  love-life  had 
been  so  richly  fed  had  been  taken  from  her,  and  she  had  refused 
to  allow  herself  longer  to  get  any  satisfaction  in  turning  to  any 
conscious  memory  of  it.  The  analysis  showed,  however,  that 
instead  of  making  a  complete  emotional  adjustment  at  this  point 
by  the  means  she  used,  she  had  merely  thrust  the  emotional  value 
which  the  memories  of  this  child  held  for  her,  below  the  level  or 
outside  the  bounds  of  her  personal  consciousness;  for  when  these 
memories  were  brought  to  the  surface  there  was  abundant 
evidence  that  they  still  held  all  their  old  feeling-values  for  her, 
in  spite  of  her- earlier  protestations  that  she  almost  never  thought 
about  the  child  any  more,  as  it  had  died  so  many  years  before, 
and  that  she  had  ceased  long  since  to  feel  its  loss.  The  evidence 
showed  that  she  had  turned  inward  to  a  life  of  unconscious 
phantasy  to  feed  upon  the  memories  of  her  child  in  which  she 
found  satisfaction,  and  away  from  the  living  members  of  the 
family  from  whom  she  was  not  receiving  similar  return.  She  did 
not  remember  what  went  on  about  her  because  she  was  simply 
not  giving  it  her  dynamic,  vital  attention.  Attention  is  essential 
to  memory.  We  do  not  normally  pay  vital  or  effective  attention 
to  that  from  which  we  do  not  get  some  satisfaction,  direct  or  in- 
direct, and  the  things  to  which  we  do  not  pay  attention,  have 
little  memory  value  for  us.  This  woman's  amnesia  grew  out  of 
lack  of  attention  to  and  interest  in  outward  objective  activities 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  347 

because  they  held  nothing  adequate  for  her  life  to  feed  upon. 
For  some  time  after  the  child 's  death  she  gave  full  conscious  at- 
tention to  the  only  source  from  which  her  nature  drew  adequate 
satisfaction,  namely,  the  memories  of  her  child.  Then,  being 
deeply  religious,  under  the  stress  of  the  conviction  that  it  was  a 
real  "  sin  "  to  grieve  so  constantly  over  one  whom  "  God  had  freed 
from  a  life  of  suffering  and  had  taken  to  live  in  bliss  with  Him  ", 
she  refused  herself  any  further  conscious  satisfaction  from  this 
source.  But  in  so  doing,  no  outlet  to  her  emotional  life  was  put 
in  its  place.  Had  she  been  able  to  turn  herself  to  her  family,  or 
her  social  circle,  and  there  find  a  satisfying  return,  the  adjust- 
ment would  have  been  possible;  the  sublimation  of  her  emotional 
life  from  the  memories  of  her  child  to  other  interests  could  have 
taken  place.  When  this  emotional  adjustment,  or  sublimation, 
fails  to  take  place,  a  condition  of  tension,  repression,  and  dissatis- 
faction is  set  up  that  very  often  leads  to  pathological  conditions 
either  in  the  functioning  of  the  body  or  of  the  mind. 
In  this  case,  there  began  a  steadily  increasing  dissociation  in  which 
the  woman  withdrew  her  attention  from  the  life  about  her  and 
unconsciously  gave  her  mind  to  the  repressed  memories.  By 
dealing  from  interview  to  interview  with  the  details  of  these  re- 
pressed memories  with  their  emotional  values,  the  woman  came 
to  be  clearly  conscious  that  her  mind  had  thus  been  living  within 
itself,  that  she  had  been  turning  her  attention  inward  as  in  a  dim 
dream,  living  in  phantasies  upon  the  satisfactions  brought  her  by 
this  subconscious  brooding.  This  stream  of  mental  life  had  been 
going  on  its  way  co-existing  with  the  parallel,  but  much  less  rich, 
stream  of  the  consciousness  that  she  had  of  her  daily  objective 
life.  As  she  came  to  recall  it,  as  one  might  an  almost  forgotten 
dream,  she  was  able  to  see  that  it  had  been  going  on  as  the  con- 
stant and  satisfying  accompaniment  of  the  superficial  life  that 
constituted  what  we  are  wont  to  call  the  personal  consciousness, 
and  that  to  the  experiences  composing  the  personal  conscious- 
ness she  had  been  giving  no  interested  heed.  Her  attention  was 
here,  her  life  was  here,  since  here  her  emotional  nature  was  re- 
ceiving its  chief  satisfaction. 

The  correction  of  the  amnesia  and  dissociation  was  brought 
about  through  resolving  the  emotional  tensions  as  they  were  dis- 
covered, and  furnishing  satisfying  channels  of  outlet  and  return 
for  the  emotional  life.  This  was  accomplished  primarily  through 
the  process  of  re-education,  by  dealing  with  the  ideas  and  atti- 
tudes which  the  analysis  showed  to  have  bearing  upon  the  wo- 


348  Psychological  A  nalysis  and  Re-Education 

man's  malady.  This  re-education,  by  which  she  was  enabled 
gradually  to  change  her  thought  life  and  to  adopt  new  programs 
of  reaction  to  her  daily  affairs,  covered  months  of  the  most  pa- 
tient and  careful  work.  Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  laid  upon 
the  fact  that  success  in  psychological  analysis  and  re-education 
demands  the  most  sincere,  intelligent,  and  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  human  nature;  otherwise  the  mind  that  has  been 
driven  in  upon  itself  reacts  to  any  attempt  to  deal  with  it  in  ex- 
actly the  same  fashion  as  it  reacts  to  any  other  situation  arising 
in  the  daily  problems  of  adjustment,  namely,  by  withdrawal,  by 
defense,  by  further  secretiveness.  The  establishment  in  the 
mind  of  the  student  of  the  attitude  of  genuine  confidence  in  his 
analyst  is  absolutely  essential  if  the  conscious  and  unconscious 
life  is  to  come  forth  from  its  hiding,  as  it  were,  and  offer  itself,  at 
first  timidly,  for  examination.  This  confidence  grows  and  be- 
comes strong  enough  to  make  it  possible  for  the  student  to  face 
with  his  analyst  the  inmost  recesses  of  his  mental  life,  to  deal  con- 
sciously and  fearlessly  with  the  painful  or  sensitive  memories, 
only  as  the  analyst,  by  answering  to  the  needs  of  the  student  mind 
proves  to  be  worthy  of  his  confidence.  For  a  complex  to  be  dis- 
charged, it  is  not  sufficient  that  it  be  uncovered  and  all  its  ele- 
ments revealed  to  the  consciousness  of  the  student.  Discharge 
of  a  complex  requires  that  every  element  that  goes  to  make  it  up, 
and  all  the  causes  that  were  at  work  to  produce  and  to  continue 
it,  shall  be  met  at  once  upon  their  appearance  with  intelligent 
understanding  by  the  analyst.  It  is  not  enough  to  listen  with 
sympathetic  ear.  To  meet  the  student  mind  with  intelligent  un- 
derstanding as  it  unfolds  itself,  requires  such  understanding  both 
of  the  causes  of  the  complex  and  of  the  specific  nature  of  that  stu- 
dent that  every  element  of  the  complex  can  be  met  by  the 
analyst  with  a  constructive  program  of  thought  and  action. 
This  program  must  be  one  that  the  student  is  able  and  willing  to 
accept,  and  that  will  enable  him  to  understand  the  causes  of  his 
difficulties  more  clearly  and  to  meet  them.  The  com- 
plex is  discharged  only  to  the  extent  that  the  student  is 
able  and  willing  to  accept  and  follow  the  program,  for  only  in 
the  acceptance  of,  and  by  action  in  accordance  with,  the  new  pro- 
gram come  those  changes  of  mind  that  both  relieve  the  complex 
of  its  burden  of  emotional  pressure  and  tension,  and  at  the  same 
time  enable  the  student  to  make  his  adjustments  in  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  action  in  such  a  way  that  the  emotional  tensions  and  re- 
pressions are  not  renewed.  Thus  the  time  that  it  takes  actually 


Margaret  J.  Hamilton  349 

and  completely  to  discharge  a  complex  is  determined  by  the  will- 
ingness and  the  ability  of  the  student  to  accept  and  put  into  ac- 
tion the  new  program.  The  discharge  begins,  and  great  relief 
often  comes  at  once,  with  the  first  understanding  that  the  student 
gets  of  himself,  and  with  the  first  steps  that  he  takes  toward  ac- 
cepting the  new  program.  But  the  discharge  is  not  completed, 
nor  is  the  psychosis  dissolved,  until  the  student  has  built  up  a  new 
mind  for  himself  at  that  point  through  the  intelligent  acceptance 
and  sincere  and  diligent  practice  of  the  new  program.  The  pro- 
cess is  a  genuinely  educational  processs,  for  the  student  learns 
to  think  and  to  feel  differently,  and  oftentimes  this  involves  very 
radical  and  far-reaching  changes.  If  no  program  is  furnished 
to  meet  the  student's  needs,  or  if  one  is  furnished  that  he  is  un- 
able or  unwilling  to  accept  and  follow,  even  though  some  relief  may 
momentarily  be  experienced  from  uncovering  the  complex,  and 
though  he  may  have  received  some  light  upon  the  causes  of  his 
difficulties,  the  student  does  not  change  his  modes  of  thought  and 
feeling,  but  goes  back  and  lives,  as  it  were,  with  his  com- 
plex. His  mind  centers  there,  for  there  is  where  he  finds  the 
only  satisfaction  that  he  knows. 

With  the  first  insight  into  the  real  causes  of  her  difficulties,  to- 
gether with  the  relief  that  came  from  a  beginning  made  in  chang- 
ing her  attitudes  of  mind,  Mrs.  Z.  's  amnesia  began  to  disappear. 
It  continued  to  improve,  as  step  by  step,  each  detail  of  the  mass 
of  repressions  and  tensions  was  brought  to  light  and  she  was 
taught  how  to  deal  with  it.  Each  step  gave  her  added  strength 
and  confidence,  so  that  she  more  and  more  allowed  that  which 
had  been  kept  hidden  to  come  into  the  light  of  clear  understand- 
ing in  her  personal  consciousness.  As  she  followed  her  program 
from  day  to  day,  she  learned  how  to  meet  without  fear  and  ten- 
sion the  various  situations  that  had  formerly  filled  her  with  fear 
and  driven  her  in  upon  herself.  She  learned  how  to  come  forth,  as 
it  were,  from  herself,  as  the  inhibitions  were  removed,  and  to 
find  a  renewed  and  satisfying  interest  in  her  family  and  commu- 
nity life.  As  an  aid  to  this,  the  daughters  were  interviewed  and 
made  acquainted  with  their  contributions  to  their  mother 's  mala- 
dy and  they  were  thus  brought  to  change  their  attitude  toward 
her.  They  ceased  their  foolish  chiding  and  ridicule,  and  began 
because  of  their  new  understanding,  to  take  her  into  their  con- 
fidence and  show  her  the  tender  affection  and  consideration  that 
were  her  due.  Her  husband  also  was  persuaded  to  have  some 
analytical  work  done  with  him,  and  as  a  result  of  his  better  under- 


350  Psychological  Analysis  and  Re-Education 

standing  both  of  himself  and  of  the  causes  of  his  wife 's  difficulties, 
he  too  was  able  to  make  some  very  decided  and  helpful  changes 
in  his  attitude  toward  his  wife.  Thus  a  new  atmosphere  was 
created  in  the  home,  so  that  the  woman  found  it  easier  to  make 
her  adjustments.  She  found  herself  with  such  response  from 
without  that  she  was  able  to  turn  there  instead  of  being  thrust 
in  upon  herself  as  before.  By  degrees,  almost  as  a  child  learning 
to  walk,  she  changed  her  reactions  and  learned  how  to  meet 
whatever  came  up  in  her  family  life  with  an  understanding 
that  avoided  generating  repressions  and  frictions  within  herself. 
In  brief,  great  repression  and  conflict,  combined  with  the 
cutting  off  of  outward  channels  of  emotional  expression  and 
satisfaction,  were  the  primary  causes  of  this  woman's  amnesic 
condition.  Removal  of  the  repressions,  stoppage  of  the  con- 
flicts, with  positive  provision  for  satisfying  outlet  and  return  for 
her  emotional  life  through  the  most  sympathetic  and  painstak- 
ing re-education,  entirely  removed  the  amnesia.  The  shrinking 
and  diffident  manner  has  entirely  disappeared,  she  is  in  most  ex- 
cellent health,  and  has  taken  her  place  capably  again  in  her  fam- 
ily and  community  life. 


REVIEWS 

PROBLEMS  OF  MYSTICISM  AND  ITS  SYMBOLISM.  By  Dr.  Herbert 
Silberer  of  Vienna.  Translated  by  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe,  M.  D.,  Ph.  D. 
New  York:  Moffat,  Yard  &  Company,  1917.  Pp.  451.  $3.00  net. 

In  his  brief  "Translator's  Preface"  Jelliffe  tells  us  that  mysticism 
is  one  of  the  products  of  the  sublimation  tendency  which  "represents 
the  spiritual  striving  of  mankind  towards  the  perfecting  of  a  relation 
with  the  world  of  reality— the  environment — which  shall  mean  human 
happiness  in  its  truest  sense."  He  would  regard  this  work  by  Silberer 
as  a  contribution  to  what  may  be  called  the  science  of  paleo-psychology 
"in  that  it  shows  the  essential  relationships  of  what  is  found  in  the 
unconscious  of  present  day  mankind  to  many  forms  of  thinking  of  the 
middle  ages." 

I  may  say  here  that  although  in  fundamental  traits  man  is  no 
different  today  than  he  was  many  years  ago,  still,  as  I  understand 
Jelliffe,  and  Jung,  and  even  Stanley  Hall,  the  contention  that  the 
conscious  thought  of  human  beings  of  earlier  times  still  exists  in  the 
unconscious  of  the  man  of  today,  means  nothing  less  than  the  heredi- 
tary transmission,  by  the  germ  plasm,  and  into  the  socalled  uncon- 
scious, of  not  only  symbols  but  even  actual  individual  thoughts  or 
ideas  of  a  definitely  acquired  nature.  The  burden  of  the  proof  of  such 
a  possibility  rests  with  those  who  make  this  claim.  And  up  to  date, 
there  is  no  substantial  evidence,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  in  its  favor.  In 
fact,  one  can  prove,  by  analytical  and  critical  thinking  and  sifting  of 
the  evidence,  that  this  cannot  be  true.  In  fact,  some  have  already 
proven  this  to  their  and  others'  complete  satisfaction. 

In  part  I  of  the  book  proper  Silberer  gives  in  full  a  parab'e 
which  he  found  in  an  old  book  dealing  with  the  hermetic  art.  The 
original  principles  of  the  socalled  hermetic  art,  sometimes  also  called 
alchemy  and  the  royal  art,  "is  related  to  several  'secret'  sciences  and 
organizations:  magic,  kabbala,  rosicrucianism,  etc."  The  latter  will 
therefore  come  in  for  discussion,  the  author  concludes. 

Silberer  regards  the  parable  as  a  dream  or  fairy  tale,  which  he 
proceeds  to  analyze  psychoanalytically,  a  short  exposition  of  psycho- 
analysis as  a  method  of  dream  and  myth  interpretation  of  necessity 
preceding  the  analytic  discussion  of  the  parable. 

Part  II  is  called  the  analytic  art  of  the  work.  His  psychoanalytic 
interpretation  of  the  parable  leads  him  to  conclude:  "the  wanderer  in 

351 


352  Review 

his  phantasy  removes  and  improves  the  father,  wins  the  mother,  pro- 
creates himself  with  her,  enjoys  her  love  even  in  the  womb  and  satis- 
fies besides  his  infantile  curiosity  while  observing  (the)  procreative 
process  from  the  outside.  He  becomes  King  and  attains  power  and 
magnificence,  even  superhuman  abilities. "  The  psychoanalyst  might 
agree  with  this  interpretation.  The  disbeliever  would  be  unable  to 
follow  the  author  in  his  analysis  and  conclusions  and  agree  to  its  truth, 
except  as  to  the  last  sentence  quoted. 

He  then  analyzes  alchemy,  the  hermetic  art,  rosicrucianism  and 
freemasonry,  espec'ally  as  regards  the  philosophy  with  which  they  are 
interwoven,  and  the  hidden  driving  forces  of  which  these  are  symbolic 
expressions. 

He  finds  that  there  are  three  possible  interpretations :  the  psycho- 
analytic, the  chemical  (scientific),  and  the  anagogic. 

This  leads  him  to  the  third  or  synthetic  part.  After  a  lengthy 
exposition  of  the  psychoanalytic  principles  of  introversion  and  regenera- 
tion, Silberer  takes  up  in  a  chapter  entitled  "The  Goal  of  the  Work," 
the  fundamental  meaning  or  object  of  mysticism.  He  speaks  of 
"union  with  God,"  which  he  prefers  to  interpret  as  self-annihilation 
rather  than  to  give  a  sexual  interpretation  or  setting.  He  also  declares : 
"The  attainment  of  an  inner  harmony,  of  a  serene  peace,  is  what, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  is  most  clearly  brought  out  as  the  characteristic  of 
the  final  unification — not  merely  by  the  Hindus  or  Neoplatonists,  but 
also  by  the  Christian  mystics  and  by  the  alchemists. "  This  paradisi- 
cal state,  with  its  "recovery  of  the  harmonious  state  of  the  soul," 
demands  absolute  freedom  from  conflicts. 

The  truly  "royal  art,"  as  elaborated  by  Silberer  in  his  final  chap- 
ter on  "The  Royal  Art,"  which  at  first  had  to  do  merely  with  gold 
making  and  magic,  's  indeed  the  perfection  of  mankind,  the  freeing  of 
the  will,  the  turning  of  the  dependent  into  independent,  the  slave  into 
a  master,  the  attainment  of  omniscience,  omnipotence.  To  attain  this 
requires  work. 

If  I  understand  Silberer  aright^  he  means  to  say  that  mystics  seek 
inner  harmony,  perfection,  omniscience,  omnipotence  and  wish  fulfill- 
ment through  union  with  God,  which  union  one  may  interpret  sex- 
ually or  as  self-annihilation,  the  author  inclining  to  the  latter  inter- 
pretation. 

Some  notes  and  a  bibliography  are  appended. 

There  is  lacking  in  this  book  a  directness  of  expression,  by  virtue 
of  which  one  can  quickly  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  author.  There 
is  a  vagueness  and  ambiguity,  and  a  circuitous  method  of  presenting 
that  which  the  author  wishes  to  say. 


Review  353 

Truth  is  interwoven  with  fiction.  There  is  much  to  praise  and 
much  to  criticize. 

The  average  reader  will  find  it  difficult  to  know  just  what  the 
author's  final  conclusions  are.  One  is  apt  to  become  confused  here 
and  there.  There  is  not  given  to  us  a  real,  compact  summing  up  of 
the  views  of  the  author.  A  few  conclusions  here,  a  few  there,  and  a 
round-about  method  of  discussion  do  not  lead  to  directness,  simplicity 
and  clarity  of  thinking  and  expression. 

In  the  chapter  on  "The  Goal  of  the  Work"  the  author  most  nearly 
approaches  the  crux  of  the  problem.  But  he  gets  hold  of  it  only  to  let 
go  again. 

Silberer  has  not  satisfactorily  solved  the  problem  of  mysticism. 
He  has  given  some  valuable  hints.  He  has  added  much  error  and 
confusion. 

The  translation  by  Jelliffe  is  satisfying  and  all  that  it  should  be. 

MEYER  SOLOMON. 


NOTES 

PSYCHIATRIC  SOCIAL  WORK  AT  SMITH  COLLEGE.  This  is  a  notice 
designed  to  call  the  attention  of  neurologists  and  psychiatrists  to  il;«« 
school  for  psychiatric  social  work  which  is  being  conducted  at  Smith 
College.  The  first  session  was  held  last  year  and  was  eminently 
successful,  both  in  point  of  the  training  given  to  the  young  women  who 
took  the  course  and  in  the  positions  they  were  able  to  fill  upon  gradua- 
tion. 

The  course  this  year,  which  is  somewhat  longer  than  it  was  last 
year,  embraces  first,  four  months  of  theoretical  work,  given  in  two 
summers,  mainly  in  the  form  of  lectures  given  by  the  sociological  and 
psychological  staffs  of  Smith  College,  and  lectures  on  psychiatry  and 
neurology  given  by  leading  physicians  actively  engaged  in  this  special- 
ty, and  second,  nine  months  of  practical  case  work  given  in  leading 
institutions  in  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore.  The 
Advisory  Committee  is  headed  by  Dr.  E.  E.  Southard  and  comprises 
Dr.  L.  Pierce  Clark,  Dr.  Walter  E.  Fernald,  Dr.  John  A.  Houston, 
President  William  A.  Nielson,  Smith  College,  and  Dr.  William  L. 
Russell. 

This  course  is  essentially  based  on  the  belief  that  psychiatry  needs 
a  specially  trained  social  worker,  both  for  diagnosis  and  treatment. 
To  the  young  women  who  enter  the  work  it  offers  a  useful  career  which 
is  gaining  yearly  in  dignity  and  remuneration.  To  the  institutions 
and  physicians  dealing  with  psychiatric  cases  it  offers  trained  workers 
well  grounded  in  social  work  and  having  enough  psychiatric  insight 
to  enable  them  to  understand  the  problems  which  they  are  to  aid  the 
institutions  and  physicians  to  solve.  This  dual  service  the  school 
carried  out  in  an  able  manner  at  its  very  first  attempt,  and  there  is  not 
the  slightest  reason  to  doubt  that  it  will  accomplish  its  purpose  even 
more  successfully  this  year  and  throughout  its  future  career. 

ABRAHAM  MYERSON,  M.  D. 


354 


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